Waiting Hand
by treeson
Summary: A secret relationship after the war threatens all Hermione has worked to achieve, and her very presence at Hogwarts. Some secrets out themselves, but there's one secret she will not allow.
1. Where Is Your Head?

**Disclaimer:** I do not own Harry Potter. I do not seek to make profit off this work. Harry Potter and its characters belong to JKR and I am happy for her to have that title. All recognizable characters belong to their respective owners.

* * *

><p>She informs Dumbledore first, as a matter of pragmatism and expediency. His response will guide her toward the rest she must tell. Also, she is sure Dumbledore will not yell at her.<p>

She knows herself, and knows she can take his bitter disappointment, since she feels it herself, probably more than anyone else could, but she is filled with unfamiliar hormones and guesses, quite rightly, that she'll start bawling if he so much as clears his throat too loud.

She knows too, if Dumbledore does not yell at her, she will carry hope to the rest of the people she must tell. That hope will be obliterated, she knows, as soon as she talks to McGonagall, to Ron and Harry, to her parents in person, but she still wants it, just for a time. It might be hopeless—and she knew that she shouldn't take comfort in something doomed to be temporary—but the hormones have not tampered with her essential self, and she has always had hope. It is foreign to not have it.

Hermione thinks this was the first time she had ever seen Dumbledore speechless. Certainly, it is the only time she has seen his mouth hang open in that manner.

"You are…" He shakes his head. The small bells twined in his beard tinkle merrily. "You are certain?" He glances at her stomach. Hidden behind bulky robes, there is not much he can see, even if there was anything there.

"It's only the ninth week, sir," she tells him, telling herself not to enjoy his discomfiture so much. "I won't start really showing for a while."

Dumbledore appears to come over his shock, his bells ringing again as he leans forward and clasps his hands over his desk.

"Miss Granger, I will not pretend to not be shocked"—he smiles obliquely at her and she blushes and looks down—"but I cannot understand your insistence to resign from not only your Head Girl status, but from the entire school. I was under the notion that your education is important to you."

"It is." And she realizes that she might cry anyway, because she _loves _Hogwarts. She loves the drafty castle and its nosy, moving portraits, she loves the library and Gryffindor tower, and all the secret rooms and passageways. She loves it as only one can love the first place to be accepted for everything weird and strange that she is. She bows her head and sniffs hard, once, telling herself she can do this, she _can _do this, and she will not cry. She swallows and lifts her head.

"It is," she repeats. "However, I have heinously abused my position as Head Girl, taken liberties with the responsibility you have honoured me with, and, forgive me, Headmaster, but I feel it is the best if I remove myself from the school in light of this. I know pregnant students are not directly forbidden from attending Hogwarts"—not that they weren't dissuaded quite _forcefully_, if the unabridged version of _Hogwarts, A History_ was to be believed—"but, as Head Girl, it is a horrible example to the students who look up to me as a moral compass.

"I have asked and been accepted at Morgana Le Fay's Light Day School and have arranged to let a cottage nearby." It says something, she thinks, of her war hero status, that she can be accepted at one of the finest and elite magical institutions besides Hogwarts in Britain just by asking. Where she would have found it horribly unfair only two weeks ago, she has only to touch the small bump of her stomach and be grateful now.

"And the father?" Dumbledore asks, distracting her from the direction her thoughts had taken. She catches the Headmaster glancing at her stomach again, but when he looks back into her eyes his eyes are not unkind. "Does he support your decision?" he gently elaborates.

Her heart beats hard in her chest. She shifts, but cannot get comfortable, and her hands have started sweating sometime in the interim. "His consideration led me to the idea of transferring, sir," she said, to get her mind off it.

For the first time, Dumbledore is angry. His eyebrows draw down and his magic stirs the air around them. Her breath catches in her throat. Hermione, who expected this from the second she opened her mouth, leans back, wondering why he is only angry at her _now_. Until he opens his mouth.

"Has he forced you into leaving?"

"No!" she yelps, and Dumbledore settles down, but the intensity does not leave his face. She's impatient to explain now, not wanting him to shift the blame to the wrong person. "Our wishes just happened to coincide, sir. Our relationship was never serious." _Yes, _she told herself impatiently, feeling the burn on her cheeks, _not that I would have complained. But that's _over _so _stop_ it!_

"Perhaps we could come to a compromise," says the Headmaster. He stands and walks toward the far side of his office. He walks like he is on a private walk through the forest, not as if her anxious eyes follow his every movement. He picks up a shiny ball off the windowsill and says, "The Deputy Headmistress and I will need some time to find your records. As you know," he says, turning to her, his smile doting, "without your records you cannot officially leave Hogwarts."

This is troubling. And, contrary to his opinion, _not_ something she knew. Her fingers double their grips in her lap.

"Why are the records lost, Headmaster?"

"The organisation was never very good, I have to admit," Dumbledore says. Like a crocodile shedding tears for the dramatic value, he pauses, and then adds, "Regrettably."

Hermione waits. And waits. Finally, bold and impatient, she asks, "And...?"

As if pulled from deep thoughts, Dumbledore lifts his head. "The last battle destroyed the foundation of the room where it was kept. Mr. Filch kindly agreed to sort it out. It's a demanding task. I would trust no one else with it."

So that's where Filch is sequestered. She had wondered.

She readjusts her hands on her lap, thinking about what she wants to say. She doesn't want to appear rude, but Dumbledore is acting suspiciously vague on this front. She suspects he has something up his purple-starred sleeve.

"When do you expect to find my record? Couldn't you just _Accio_ it?"

"Not possible, I'm afraid," he says. "Student records cannot be summoned by just _anyone_."

"But you're the Headmaster."

"Exactly!" he says, pleased as he leaned back on the balls of his feet like a young boy gleefully anticipating candy. His smile is achingly familiar, almost taunting in its nature. "I estimate it will take, hm, a week to export your records. You can come back to me then."

A week. She sighs. Now she knows for certain. This is one of Dumbledore's schemes. For what reason?

_A week,_ she thinks. _Does he want me to think over what I'm doing? Does he want me to reconsider?_

Dumbledore clears his throat. When she looks up, his eyes dart between her and the door. She takes the hint.

For whatever reason, Dumbledore wants her to take a week to think.

It's a good thing, then, that thinking is what she does best.

* * *

><p>She tells Professor McGonagall next. As her Head of House, the witch she has looked up to from her first week of Hogwarts, and the woman who has mentored her for the past year, she owes her a great many things, not least of which is the truth.<p>

She waits for the NEWT Advanced students to walk out, cursing her timing as she's forced to avoid Harry and Ron's attempts to get her to come with them to lunch or, when that does not work, tell them right then why she hasn't left her dormitory three days in a row and missed a whole day of lessons and the Prefect meeting. She fobs them off as best she can—which isn't very good at all—feeling other eyes on her and burning under them. She never thought she could use the fact that she's pregnant to escape her best friends, but she does, and gladly, shutting the classroom door behind her so hard it rattles the candelabras hanging next to it.

McGonagall's disappointment is harder to bear. She almost _does_ cry, then, and the professor doesn't even yell at her. She doesn't have to tell her she's disappointed. Hermione prides herself on knowing her favourite professor, and can see it in her eyes, in the lips that have never thinned her way but do now.

The only reason she does not cry is because she promised herself she wouldn't, at least until she finished telling the people who need to know and got back to her dormitory. She is not back in her dormitory. There are two more people to tell. She cannot cry.

Hermione leaves with the strict order to appear before Madam Pomfrey every week, echoing the Headmaster's order, and deliberates between going back to her dorm and waiting in Gryffindor Tower for Harry and Ron.

She chooses neither, and heads toward the Great Hall for lunch. She can catch her friends there and bring them to an unused classroom after to tell them.

_It is not procrastinating,_ she told the voice that whispers in her head. _Just having my last normal moment with them this year._

She takes the shortest path, leading her by the Charms classroom. She passes the humpbacked witch and a hand reaches out and yanks her behind it.

Her startled yell is smothered in a familiar mouth and her muscles try to relax and tense simultaneously, leading her to push him away as her body tries to pull him back.

"Malfoy," she breathes. Her fingers dig into his shoulders when he tries to lean forward again. "Wh-what are you doing?"

"We've got ten minutes for me to _do _you." He smirks and her eyes flutter as he takes her lips again, softer, almost chaste, compared to before. His tongue skims her lips, begging entrance and she lets him, uses her hands to grab his collar and pull him closer.

He's flush against her, his entire length pressed against her like he's wearing her as a second skin and it feels _so good. _She can't remember why she would want to keep away from him for so long. It's a sin, she thinks, and muffles her moan in his mouth as he sucks her tongue. She's missed this so much, him and his devilish tongue that's mimicking what he'll do to her, and the wicked fingers that leave her aching wherever they touch. She tries to think and can't. He's done it again. Taken away all the common sense that makes up half her brain, leaving behind only her senses. He smells like metal and a blown out match, and she's never smelled anything so tempting in her life, and it's no wonder she's pregnant, with him throwing out half her brain when he comes near.

"_Fuck. _I've missed this. Where have you _been_?"

"I—"

"Doesn't matter." He groans as he pulls her hand down to wrap around his cock. She gasps, her fingers squeezing as she presses her thighs tight together, and he grunts and thrusts forward. "_Hermione._ I – ngh – won't last."

He pushes her robes aside and attacks her skirt like it's done him some grave offense and he's going to challenge it to a duel. He curses and pushes it up, his hands shaking too badly to undo it, and his fingers brush over her bare stomach.

She jerks and pulls away with one coordinated effort. Her eyes are wide and she probably looks like she's seen a demon from the seventh level of Hell. In the second's silence, her brain tells her that he felt nothing, that from his shocked eyes he has no idea what happened, but then the silence ends and still she gasps, _"Don't!"_ like he has seen into her mind and knows everything.

She hears his "Granger!" and doesn't stop. She runs like Dementors are after her.

She ducks into the closest girls' loo, her wand out. She's sealing the door shut before she even has the idea. She turns around and realizes it was a mistake to lock herself here—it seemed Moaning Myrtle has visited sometime today. The sinks are all filled with water and spilling over onto the floor.

She releases a breath holding all her terror, her surprise, her anxiety. She allows nothing more.

She sighs and walks over to turn the taps off. A simple spell dries the floor, but she'll need to go back to Gryffindor to change her shoes and socks. Drying charms just leave them itchy for some reason. She waits five minutes, enough to straighten her clothes and for Malfoy to have left the level, and leaves for Gryffindor Tower. Twenty minutes later, after Harry and Ron check the library and the Prefect's Office, so they tell her, they find her waiting for them in the common room.

"Let's go to my dormitory," she tells them, and they follow her to the Gryffindor Head Girl's room. She sits braced against her headboard with her two friends at the end of the bed. She takes a deep breath and says, "There's something I need to tell you…"

* * *

><p>She had only visited the Hospital Wing to get a Pepper-Up Potion. She had been feeling fatigued for a few months, but now it was affecting her during class! It became critical that she got this flu sorted out.<p>

Except it wasn't a flu, or even stress. Madam Pomfrey performed a diagnostic. She stared at whatever had come from Hermione for almost two minutes, her usually unflappable self becoming flustered, her cheeks reddening in something like embarrassment. Hermione almost laughed out loud. She performed the diagnostic again, and stuttered at Hermione.

The comedy long gone, Hermione listened in growing disbelief as Madam Pomfrey explained to her that there would be no more Pepper-Up Potion, not for seven more months at least. Nor could she imbibe any potion that held parts of dragons, lethifolds, or any other dangerous creature. She was, in effect, banned from taking _two-thirds _of the common potions available, and _none _of the not so common.

Calming Draughts were, luckily, not included.

Hermione waits, begging words strangled in her throat—she will not plead, she will not beg, even if it is tempting to fall to her knees and hug their knees the longer they stare at her with pale faces and dropped jaws.

"Say something," she whispers. Her hands move, but she forces herself to grab hold of her pillows instead of reaching out to them. "Please."

Ron shuts his mouth. She can see the moment pure anger, pure _Ron_ anger, which is worse because he's looking at her, fills them. A muscle in his jaw twitches.

"I'll kill him," he said. His voice is very quiet and she believes him utterly. "I'm going to _kill him._"

The quietness of his voice convinces her that he very well _would _if Malfoy had been there, or if she has the insane idea to tell him just _who_ the father is. She doesn't like that voice, not one bit. She silently knocks him off the list of people she could confide in, and looks at Harry.

He stares at her for a moment, then huffs and sits back. "Don't look at me like that, Hermione," he says, making his hair even more untidy as he runs a hand through it. "I – I'm just _surprised_. You didn't even tell us you were seeing someone and now _this._"

"We weren't even seeing each other," Hermione says, clutching her pillow tightly. "Just having fun. The war's over, I had this whole bright life in front of me, and I wanted to have some _fun _for once. If I had known it would backfire so brilliantly, I would have reconsidered."

"Aw, _Hermione._" Harry pulls her into a hug. She resists at first, but then his arms wrap around her, and she's enveloped entirely in his warmth and cannot think that she _doesn't _deserve this anymore. Her eyes close and there's a Quaffle lodged in her throat, and then Ron hugs her other side, his lips pressed into her hair, saying "Shush, shush." She's confused until she realizes that it's _her _making those choked, sobbing noises into Harry's shoulder. They rock her between them, Ron shushing and Harry murmuring _it's alright, Hermione, it's okay. We're here, we love you._

She can pretend, as she pulls one arm from around Harry and strains it wrapping it around Ron, that he might be right. It will be okay.

They disentangle awkwardly, looking furtively at each other until Harry knocks his head against the bedpost and they begin laughing. Hermione's still giggling, a hand covering her mouth, when something presses against her bladder. _Hard. _"Oh!" she exclaims. "Excuse me."

She hurries into the toilet, shutting the door behind her and barely pulling away her robes before she almost wets herself.

She sighs, letting her head fall between her knees. _This will always come first. I musn't forget that._

* * *

><p>When she comes out, having abandoned her robes since she's not expected in her classes today, Harry and Ron are talking quietly at the end of the bed, their heads bent together. She remembers when she last saw that pose, on a plotting Fred and George during the war, and narrows her eyes at them as she resumes her seat. She narrows them further when they both look up at her innocently.<p>

She scoffs. _Like I believe _that.

"So," Harry says, wiggling his eyebrows. "Who's the father?"

"My sickle's on Goldstein."

Hermione blinks. _Goldstein? Who—? _"_Anthony_ Goldstein?" she exclaims. _"What?"_

"Told you," Harry says, plastering a haughty look on his face that reminded her uncomfortably of Malfoy. "It's Zacharias Smith. He's fancied her since fifth year."

"How do you even entertain these ideas?" she asks, shaking her head as she flops back onto her pillows. "_Neither _Anthony nor Smith like me."

"You haven't been thinking Smith joined the Order because he wanted to fight Voldemort, is it?" Harry snorts and glances at Ron, who performs a mightily good impression of a fairy tale witch by cackling loudly. "You should have _seen_ how pissed they were when we got our letters and they found they didn't make Head Boy. We were there, remember, at that party at the Leaky Cauldron?" Yes, she remembers. It had been August, and so hot she'd worn a short skirt. She had later seen that skirt on the floor of Malfoy's bedroom, waking up still tasting the triple firewhiskies she ordered in celebration—then Malfoy had bought her more rounds, celebrating his own Head Boy position. His sweaty shirt had landed beside her skirt.

She swallows. "Why were they angry?" she whispers.

"Because _then _they had to find another way to spend time around you," Ron says, ceasing his cackling and sounding remarkably like she does in lecturing mode. She glances his way, glaring a little, and he laughs again, smacking Harry's arm. "Look! She _still _doesn't believe us."

Harry's grinning when he says, "Just watch them next time you're around them, okay? _Merlin, _Hermione. Aren't you supposed to be explaining this to _us_?"

"I've been busy this year." She can't believe how defensive she's getting. By the look of it, neither can Harry or Ron. Her mouth still movies without her consent, however, and she's dragged along in its wake. "_I _have Head Girl duties and, and—"

"—making babies?" Ron offers.

She collapses against her pillows, groaning. There is silence. Then, finally, "Yes," she groans. "Merlin, where has my head _been _this year? I can't believe I let this happen."

"They do say the smartest people have the worst accidents," Ron says, nodding sagely. "I always thought you'd blow yourself up in some mad Arithmancy/Charms/Potions experiment, or maybe transfigure yourself into a rock, but getting up the duff was a close third."

"Thank you," Hermione tells him in all seriousness. "I would rather have been transfigured into a rock. At least I wouldn't have to _pee_ all the damn time!"

Harry's face scrunches up as he looks at her. "What are you going to do, then? Have you talked to Dumbledore?"

She fiddles with a loose thread on her tie. At least, she figures, we have the hard part out of the way, and now we can joke about it and figure out what happens next. Even if those questions are uncomfortable.

"Yes," she says, throwing caution to the four winds. "He's asked me to take a week to think about transferring to a different school. I don't think…" She pauses, twists her lips. "I don't think I could stand all the jokes. _Perfect Hermione Granger, finally gets Head Girl and then up the duff!_" Shame burns next to her indigestion.

_"What?"_ Their response is simultaneous.

"They can't make you transfer!" Harry shouts. He looks like he's a second away from jumping up and running to the Headmaster's office to thump him.

"_He's _not," Hermione says. She sits up, taking care to keep a pillow in front of her stomach. "He wants me to stay," she says, watching as their faces distort with confusion. She sighs and closes her eyes. "_I _want to transfer. Can't you see it's for the best?"

_"No."_ She glances at Ron and gets the same answer.

"Can you _imagine _Rita Skeeter when she gets a hold of this?" she asks, desperate for them to agree with her. "I'll be a laughingstock of the Wizarding world. My _parents _read the _Prophet_. My parents will read every single lie she writes about me! I can't put them through that—I _can't._ I can't, can't"—she pushes past the obstruction in her throat—"I can't put my baby through that." Harry and Ron's faces twist at that, and she tastes tears at the back of her throat. "I have to think of more than myself now," she whispers. "Can't you see that? Any other scandal, I would face it head on. But now"—she drops the pillow, and their eyes follow her hand where she cups her stomach—"I'm doing something for someone other than myself."

"Does the father know?"

She wonders if Harry had planned to echo Dumbledore so exactly. He even had the cadences right.

"He doesn't disagree," she says obliquely. _Because I never gave him the chance to._ Her hand falls away from her stomach.

_Nor will I. _

***


	2. The Plan In Motion

**Disclaimer:** I do not own Harry Potter. I do not seek to make profit off this work. Harry Potter and its characters belong to JKR and I am happy for her to have that title. All recognizable characters belong to their respective owners.

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><p>"Granger. I need to speak to you."<p>

She tenses and Ron, who has already zapped a wasp that got into the castle because he thought it might sting her, takes it as his cue to face Malfoy, his hand hovering protectively over her shoulder. "Shove it, Malfoy. Hermione's busy."

Yes, busy eating every food even resembling a plant Ron pushed at her and drinking almost a gallon of milk at Harry's insistence. Not to mention, busy trying to keep everything down when all she feels is nausea. She blames the grease on Dean's sausages. No matter that he sits halfway down the table, she can _smell it_.

_Next time,_ she thinks, _I'll go to the kitchens and eat in the Prefect's Office._  
><em><br>_"Granger and I have Head business, Weasley," Malfoy says, before she can gain the courage to look up.

"We do," Hermione tells Ron, rather more hesitantly than she intends. She grimaces at herself and stands, ignoring the way Harry twitches and Ron seethes.

"We should go to the Prefect's Office," Hermione says as she walks away from the table with Malfoy. Nerves gather in her stomach and spawn nervelettes. Draco nods mutely and strides ahead. She gulps and follows.

They turn onto a side-corridor beside the Great Hall that leads to a shortcut to the greenhouses. Further down is a portrait of a peach tree that sprouts a knob on its trunk when Draco whispers the password. This week it is _dutiful student_. Draco holds the door open for her and she walks through as if Voldemort waits on the other side.

She turns around as soon as Draco closes the door behind him. She ignores his pointed look at the pair of cushy red chairs by the flickering fire and begins pacing. She couldn't stay still if she Spellotaped herself to the worktable.

She has to tell her parents this weekend. Her _dad_ and, Helga's knickers, her _mum._ Now Draco is there, staring at her as if she's some crazy person—admittedly, she knows she's acting one, adding more stress to the insanity—and what if Harry and Ron take Draco's abrupt appearance at the table and start adding things together, piecing up all the times Hermione has gone off with Draco and done who-knew-what? Except Hermione knew what. And if they find out?

She groans. _Mass homicide. _

Nausea is the least of her stomach problems now.

"Do I need to put a Leg-Lock on you?" Draco asks, lounging in one of the chairs she had ignored. He stretches out his legs, tugging out the wrinkles in his trousers, and looks up at her from under raised eyebrows. Yes, he is a handsome prick. He doesn't need to flaunt it.

"You could try," Hermione says, and keeps pacing.

Draco shrugs, as if that's one fight he would like to see, and relaxes. "So what's up, Granger? Is this you going off your public shagging kick? Just so you know, I'm not sneaking into your room again. It's either the dungeon or nothing. That Fat Lady kept following me through the castle the last time. Giggling," he adds, as if he hadn't made that clear enough.

Embarrassment traps her usual response, which is a flare of anger for suggesting it had been _her_ public shagging kick. He'd been there too, hadn't he? But, now, it is so easy to see where she has gone wrong. Malfoy, for one. Hasn't she already learned that sneaking leads to nothing good? She had the Viktor debacle as a clear guide, and look what happened to Harry and Ginny last year when Molly found them in the drawing room. _That_ fight had been a roof-raiser.

If she remembers correctly—she does—Draco had treated the two-week fight like a festival.

She stops pacing and faces him. "I'm pregnant."

His face is—she never wants to see it again. She rolls her eyes and begins pacing again. "Oh, don't throw a fit. It's not _yours._" Heat fills her face—anger? shame? She can't tell right now, nor does she want to. The shock, the to the marrow _horror_ on his face—she wants to throw up. This is not the simple nausea from the breakfast table. This is full on _disease._ She was right, she was _so—so so so_—right about this.

"I-it's not?" Draco asks, and she hears the eminent heart attack in his voice.

_"No,"_ she says, and brushes a hand through her hair impatiently. She huffs for good measure. He takes it in with a face still bloodless from shock. "I know how to do a paternity test, thank you."

He sits forward, face hesitant and eyes darting toward her stomach. "Not saying you don't, but—"

"Yours was the first hair I checked," she says. "It was negative. Go ahead and do your own if you like. I have the materials in my bookbag—"

"No, that's okay," Draco says, Adam's apple bobbing. Her hands unclench. "Whose is it? If you want to tell me, I mean. You don't—" He swallows again and shakes his head. Now she knows what a dumbfounded Draco Malfoy looks like, and she regrets seeing it at all. It's not as funny as she thought it would be.

"We're still discussing the problem," she says, and sighs. The heat has drained away from her face to fill up her shoulders. She wants to wrap her arms around herself and cry—or smack him. Or herself. She doesn't know.

There's one thing she does know. She's in this all the way now. You can't lie straight-faced to a pureblood scion of one of the most well-known Dark pureblood families in the hemisphere about his half-blood baby and expect him to shrug and say, 'Them's the shakes.'

This would have to be her deathbed confession.

"Hermione, I have to say, I-I really don't know what to say here," Draco admits. His eyes are asking her what he's supposed to do now, and Merlin, she doesn't know.

Or, rather, she doesn't _want_ to know. The logic of the situation has hold of her and she pushes all her might into saying, "You don't have to say anything. It's not your problem. Or business. I just wanted to let you know why this has to end. I'm sorry about yesterday." Glancing at her watch, she ignores the faint trembling in her hand. "It's time I should get back."

Draco doesn't move. He's staring at his own hands, out in front of him. "It's Goldstein's, isn't it?"

"It's my what?" Their attention both jerks to the entrance, where Anthony pushes the door open. He sees Hermione and smiles vaguely. "Oh, hullo, Hermione. It's my what, Malfoy?"

"Late shift this week," Malfoy says without missing a beat. "Granger, we need next month's patrol schedule tomorrow to give to the Headmaster."

"About that," Hermione says. "I think Millicent should do it. I-I mean," she continues, gulping in the face of twin confusion directed at her, and the knowledge behind Draco's eyes, "I've been accepted to the Light Day School and—I'm terribly sorry about the lateness of the notice—but if I _do_ go, I'm transferring next week. So... um, Millicent seems like a good replacement. I've been looking at her record and, um. So. Yeah."

"Wow," Anthony says, rocking back on his heels. "That's- that's a great opportunity, Hermione. I suppose you're moving back in with your parents?"

"What?" she asks, all the emotion whooshing out of her voice to leave this cold tone she didn't recognize. How much did he hear?

"A lot of people have," Anthony continues, oblivious. "Ernie's dad transferred him as soon as the Hogwarts letters went out, you know. And then Neville. Well, you know all about his Gran."

"Oh, yeah." Hermione nods fervently. The whole hemisphere heard that row. "That. Well, it will be easier visiting my parents there, but it's the, um, opportunity, that's what's I'm going for. The curriculum."

Snorting, Draco stands and brushes invisible lint off his shirt. "Don't be so modest about it, Granger. You could've given _me_ some more notice, though. I'll be stuck with all the schedules for the next month until Millicent or whoever gets your job gets up to speed."

"I'm glad you've already thought of all the problems," Hermione says dryly. She grabs her bookbag and she is half out the door in front of Malfoy when she remembers Harry's request from the night before. Anthony didn't seem in the middle of a crush at all. She nods. He had been genuinely happy for her. Harry and Ron had seen something that simply wasn't there.

When they reach the end of the corridor, inches from the first rush of students passing them by on their way to their first lesson of the day, Draco turns toward her. Reluctantly, she stops and waits for whatever he has to say, listening to the chatter and the everyday concerns of her so-called peers. Sadness clenches next to her nausea. They aren't her peers anymore.

There are a few extra hundred students in the castle, making Hogwarts the busiest it's ever been. There were the upper years that had stayed through their seventh year to fight instead of learn that had been invited to finish their schooling tuition-free. Most had taken Dumbledore up on the offer; some opted to get tutors for the subjects they needed and take their NEWTs.

The option looks terribly appealing to her now, with uncertainty squatting in the horizon, as disturbing as Umbridge. Problem is, Hermione _likes _school. She can learn on her own, it's not impossible and only takes a little more effort, but she absorbs better when she sits in a classroom with a professor at the front of the room. She retains, not just memorizes.

She inhales a shaky breath. Hogwarts has done a lot for her, but she has to get away before the news comes out. She glances at Draco as Anthony passes, waving to them as he goes.

"You're a terrible liar," Draco says as soon as he is out of earshot. He raises his voice to a falsetto. "'I'm there for the curriculum.' If you expect Goldstein believed _that_, then I'm a hippogriff."

She snorts. Unbelievable. Is it possible to feel shame and pride simultaneously? It's a first for her.

"Thanks, Malfoy," she says, rolling her eyes. "See you in class."

After navigating through the last stragglers, she goes back to the Great Hall and joins Harry and Ron at the table. She casts her eye down the table, which is almost empty; not many of the lower years are as lucky as they are to have a free first period. Harry touches her arm as she sits next to him. On the back of her neck are Malfoy's eyes as he comes in. She tries to ignore it.

This is not my life, she thinks.

"You okay?" Harry asks gently. "Malfoy upset you?"

"Oh, no," she says. It's true, right? It isn't Malfoy upsetting her. He's just being Malfoy. It's her own body, her own mind. It's life and what she has to do to keep going. The albatross around her neck—or in her stomach—that makes it impossible to like herself.

Harry lowers his voice, darting an anxious glance at the empty spots across from them as if it had suddenly sprouted ears when he wasn't looking. "Then what's wrong?"

His voice reminds her of the night before, after Ron left the room to change into his nightclothes. Harry's face had been so serious, his lips white from pressing them together half the night, from pretending to be more okay with it than he was, his laughter strained. She'd known as soon as she told them her expected due date that he did the math.

He had pulled her aside as soon as the door closed behind Ron. "Is it—?"

"No," she said before he could get the question out. "I promise. Yours was the first hair I checked."

And it couldn't be Harry's. That one night—drunk and restless and Harry so damned _maudlin_ over Ginny_._ It had been nothing, just insane hormones and victory adrenaline in their veins.

Even if it is his, unlikely as the possibility is, she could not ruin Harry's life with this. He had so much, _so _much to look forward to in life. All the things denied to him, first through Voldemort and then by his so-called family, the Dursleys. He and Ginny were so special together, so in love, just as she imagined his parents.

She brings herself back to the present, back to safer ground.

"Just thinking how much I'll _really_ hate giving up this place." She sighs. This drafty old castle that stayed standing even after Voldemort's forces tried to demolish it is her first love. It has been the one solid thing in her life—more solid than friendships and peculiar affairs with Malfoy and wars. She lets herself lean against Harry when he offers and he rubs her shoulder, a moment of pure selfishness. Merlin, they've been great.

"Well, that's the beauty, right?" Ron asks, waving a potato skin at her. "You don't _have_ to."

She smiles softly. "It's a nice thought." Pulling away from Harry, she takes the last potato skin off Ron's plate. Ever since school reopened, the elves have been in high culinary gear, serving everything from the aforementioned potato skins to suckling pig. They didn't account for specialized menus for breakfast, lunch and dinner. Every meal was a feast to them.

"Here, you can't eat that," Ron says, snatching back his potato skin. Around his mouthful, he explains, "It's unhealthy."

"Says Dr. Weasley," Harry says. They're snorting in amusement at the befuddled Ron when Ginny comes up.

Books to her chest and looking smart with her prefect's badge, she grins at them. "You three look like you're up to something."

Harry's amusement disappears as fast as an _Obliviate_. His anger makes the hair on her arms stand. Hermione looks at him and down at her lap, as uncomfortable as if he had started shouting. The thing with Seamus is still festering between the two. Hermione knows the barest of details and what she does know is bad. Hermione—reluctantly, when Harry had asked her opinion, with flared nostrils and lots of heavy breathing—had to put some of the blame on all the free Firewhisky at all the pubs they went to. She knows she blames it for her own situation.

Ginny's grin fades. She flushes and swallows hastily.

"I guess – I was just coming to ask Hermione something…"

Hermione lifts her head uneasily, refraining from glancing at Harry's expression through sheer effort. "Oh?"

"Yes." Her eyes dart toward Harry. "Um. Can we talk privately?"

"Sure," Hermione agrees readily. Harry tenses, but she can ignore it for a second. She stands, grabbing her bookbag, gives Ron an unamused glare as she snatches the carrot he holds out to her. A carrot. _Honestly._ As if diet alone makes a healthy pregnancy.

There was exercise and vitamins and…

Other things. She made looking this up the… third thing on her to-do list. She doubts Madam Pomfrey will have a handy pamphlet for her.

"—is he?"

Hermione pulls her mind to the present and realizes not only has Ginny been speaking to her for the past couple minutes, but they have reached the stairs in the Entrance Hall. She still has the carrot in her hand.

"Hm? Wait, what?"

Ginny frowns as they stop on the bottom step. She folds her arm and lowers her red-rimmed eyes to the ground. "You don't think he'll ever forgive me, do you." It's not a question.

"Oh, Gin," Hermione says. She gives her a brief hug around her books. "It'll be okay. You'll see. It's just too soon to be trying to be friendly again."

Ginny looks wretched. "But that's what you said last week and the week before."

"And it still applies," she says, though not unkindly. She nudges her forward, up the stairs. "It'll get better soon."

"Not soon enough," Ginny mutters.

She's right about that. Twenty-seven more weeks until everything is better, and by everything she means less pregnant. Then she will be a mum. A mother. She will have a baby to raise, to teach manners and how to spell properly. How to make good life choices and not join the Death Eaters or whatever radical gang that replaces them. She will have to worry about dentist appointments and doctor's visits. Then she'll have to fret over finding him or her in drawing rooms with significant others or even, Merlin forbid, behind the statue of the humpbacked witch in the middle of a school day.

She only realizes Ginny's stopped when she tugs on Hermione's elbow. Her brows are drawn as she examines Hermione's face. "Are you okay? You don't look so good."

She draws a blank on a suitable answer. No, she's not okay. She is _far_ from okay. If okay was Scotland, Hermione is on the moon.

"I'm fine." She pats Ginny's hand. "Just tell me you'll back off for right now? It's hard for him to get over it when you keep showing up."

"Okay, Hermione. I'll try to stay away." She sighs, pinching the bridge of her nose, and then drops her hand, face tight. "I can't promise to stay away forever, though. I miss him too much."

Hermione cannot resist. She pulls Ginny into a hug, never mind the bookbag on her shoulder, the books in the way, or the carrot in her hand. Let her be uncomfortable. This is more important. Ginny's face is less wretched when they part, a tiny bit happier, proving her point.

Her expression changes suddenly, becoming hesitant and a little afraid. "Um, Hermione, you wouldn't talk to Harry again for me, would you?" After seeing Hermione's face, she turns pink and adds, "I-I mean, I know it didn't go so well last time. For you. But this is the last time I'll ask, I swear! He just has to know I'm serious about this second chance."

"I'm going to regret saying this," Hermione says slowly, already regretting it. "But okay. I'll try. _One_ more time. No more. And you have to back off."

"Done," Ginny says. She grins—and though it's not quite the same grin as it was before that unfortunate weekend, it is _a_ grin. That matters. That matters a lot. Who knew life as war heroes, celebrated daily in the newspapers and frequently asked for their autographs, wasn't all cake and parties? They might get all the free Firewhisky they want, but they still did the same stupid shit everyone else did when they were intoxicated. People, she thinks, would be shocked.

Hermione wouldn't admit to believing celebrities were better than regular, everyday people, or different at all, really, but she had thought helping to win a war would earn her _some_ karmic intervention.

Ginny stares down the corridor thoughtfully. She smiles sadly, glancing at Hermione to join in the joke. "Who knew I would be asking your advice to help me with Harry again? Just shows you life's twist and turns, right?"

"I wish there weren't so many," Hermione admits. She glances over the railing as people begin to trickle out of the Great Hall, either to go their first lesson or, if they're like Hermione, have another hour of free time to spend.

Ginny nods down the corridor. "Want to walk me to Transfiguration?"

"Um." Her gaze darts back down to the first level. The thought of seeing McGonagall so soon after yesterday makes her stomach hurt. "Actually, I see Hannah there. I have to tell her about the change in the rotation."

"Oh. Anything about mine?"

"Nope. Just Hannah's." She begins hurrying down the stairs, regardless of safety, and calls back, "See you at lunch!"

"Uh, okay! Bye!" Confusion lines Ginny's voice, but she's happy to wave after Hermione.

She arrives at the bottom breathless and clutching at the stitch in her side. Drats. It's been a long time since she's run down that staircase; it obviously doesn't agree with her eighteen year old body compared to her twelve year old one. She strikes that off her list of ways to exercise. That was _harsh._

Still clutching her side, she drags herself over to Hannah.

"Hey, Hannah, pretty headband," she says, smiling widely. "Zacharias." She glances back up the stairs. Ginny is gone. She turns back to the two Hufflepuffs, who stare at her expectantly. "Okay, I'm off to the library. See you in class!"

* * *

><p>Hannah snorts as soon as Hermione's back disappears around the corner. She shakes her head. "A little exuberant this morning, isn't she?"<p>

"You think she remembers Pince doesn't allow food in the library?" Zacharias asks as they begin toward the side corridor that will take them straight to the Hufflepuff common room. "Not even carrots."

* * *

><p>Hermione's in her room that night, after a hellacious time in all her lessons. The professors stared, they whispered together in corridors, quieting when Hermione passed by, and Hermione could imagine every single word out of their lips. She had heard the same ones when she found out, only inside her head. It was bad enough that she had been right to expect it of them, but worse that she had hoped to prove her cynicism wrong.<p>

She doesn't think about Professor Snape.

It will be ten times worse when everyone knows.

She stares outside her window at the full moon illuminating the grounds, spreading quicksilver across the lake. Somewhere out there, werewolves are running. Unicorns dance. Hippogriffs fly. And, inside of her, a child grows closer to being introduced to this strange, mad world she loves so dizzyingly.

Somewhere out there a Metamorphmagus grows bigger, closer to understanding why his parents are not there to care for him. Countless others are missing their parents, an aunt or uncle, their grandparents. Dumbledore had saved many people from the Death Eater's destruction, as had Harry, but not enough, not nearly enough.

Can she deny herself her friends? More importantly, can she deny her child—and it is _her_ child, no matter how many times she calls him or her 'it'—its family, when so many other children don't have any?

Yes, she could. She might even be happier. A year is not even that long, anyways, and the Light Day School will open more doors for her.

Leaning against the wall, she presses her cheek to the stone, lets the cold seep into her skin. This is her home, under this moon, in this castle, with these people.

When has she ever been frightened away from doing what she wanted?

Never. She never allowed it.

_And you are now?_

She touches the windowpane, leaving four fingerprints in the dew.

_That remains to be seen. I have five more days._


	3. A Reaction

**Disclaimer:** I do not own Harry Potter. I do not seek to make profit off this work. Harry Potter and its characters belong to JKR and I am happy for her to have that title. All recognizable characters belong to their respective owners.

* * *

><p><em>Well,<em> Draco thought as he sat down next to Millicent while across the Great Hall Granger leaned on Potter, _that was different._

Scratching his forearm thoughtfully, he looked across the Great Hall at her. She was laughing. The duo seemed appropriate guardians on either side of her, simultaneously ignoring everyone else and giving anyone curious the evil eye. It was the picture perfect holiday card in the making.

And yet… Something felt off in his stomach. Maybe the surprise he felt in the Prefect's Office, that Granger would be careless in her potion taking, or that she would sleep with more than one bloke at a time. He didn't want to untangle those thoughts, so he left it alone. Maybe the off-ness was from how the green on Granger's face matched some of the walls in St. Mungo's.

"Yes, that is exactly what you should do," Millicent said beside him. He blinked and faced her. She nodded to his arm. "Stroke your Dark Mark while staring at the wonder trio. _Brilliant_, Malfoy. Where_ is_ Skeeter to get a picture when we need one?"

"Probably taking pictures of your new Head Girl badge," Draco said. He dropped his hand off his arm and observed Millicent's face as he picked up his coffee. It had grown cold while he was in the Prefect's Office.

Her eyes narrowed, she stared at him for a long, tense moment. "Funny," she said, not looking the least amused. "It doesn't look like Granger's dead."

"She's not," Draco said as he poured a second cup of coffee. Millicent boiled beside him, staring so hard at the side of his head she probably saw out the other side. He wished she would do something useful and heat up his coffee while she was there. He took a delicate sip from his cup and grimaced. The elves should have put another pot out. Next to him came a growl.

"Malfoy—"

Shrugging, he took another drink before he allowed her out of her misery. "She's been accepted to the Light Day School."

"Of course she has," Millicent said, disgusted.

"And when we spoke about replacements, your name naturally came up," Draco said. He shifted the napkin by the empty plate in front of him and added, "You're welcome."

"My name?" she asked. "Not Patil's or Abbott's? What, did you _Imperio_ her?"

He stared at her. After a few seconds under it, she lowered her eyes. "Okay, yeah, fine."

Draco relaxed, glancing around them. No one sat near them. No one had overheard. They had to be careful. One misstep, one millimeter out of bounds, one inappropriate joke in the wrong ear… well, they had crucified people for less. His hand drifted to his pocket, to the letter he received this morning, as a reminder. He would not be his father, groveling and paying out the nose. He had followed his father's footsteps long enough; he didn't care to wear the same shoes.

Her face creased in a frown, Millicent stared across the Great Hall. "You know—not that I've thought about it any," she added quickly, "but I never thought Granger would leave Potter behind." She took a bite of her eggs and chewed thoughtfully. "What do you think of it?"

"I don't know," he said, shrugging the question off his shoulders. "Should I think anything of it?" It was a stupid question. He never thought about Granger leaving, so he had no answer. Maybe he was a little surprised that she would bow to peer pressure and leave Hogwarts, because it went against the Gryffindor spirit and was therefore against logic, but, as Granger had said, it wasn't his business. He had dodged that curse, thank Merlin. He did not intend to invite trouble by getting involved or thinking too hard about it.

"Wait, leave Potter?" Draco asked.

Millicent waved her roll at him. "Well, they're shagging, aren't they? I heard a Ravenclaw saw Skeeter trying to finagle her way into Hogwarts to get the scoop."

"They _are_?" That tidbit about Rita Skeeter was useful, too.

"Oh, yeah," she said. "Everyone knows that. Ever since the Weasley-ette cheated on him." She laughed at Draco's expression. "Being Head Boy really has you out of the loop, Draco."

Funny. Here he was thinking shagging Granger had him out of the loop.

He turned back to his plate in a more considering mood. No wonder she was running away. This was a public relations nightmare for the both of them. If their names weren't mentioned once in every edition of the _Prophet_, Rita Skeeter wasn't doing her job right. Now, though… Saint Potter's Bastard! He could already see the headlines. The shock, the instant uproar against them both, Granger especially—they would be lucky to get out alive.

He began poking his cup of coffee, inching it around his plate. He hadn't really thought of Granger outside of shagging her, except when he was thinking about shagging her or waiting in some dark supply closet to shag her. He was thinking about her now, despite himself. He found it quite painful to imagine her and Potter shagging—the boy had all the sex appeal of the Giant Squid. Painful, but quite easy to imagine. It made him sick how cozy and innocent they looked together in his mind's eye.

He glanced across the hall again to see Granger leaving with Ginny Weasley. Wasn't that a strange duo? Potter didn't look too happy at his girlfriend leaving with his ex. Even Weasley seemed uncomfortable beside him.

"Hey, Millie?" He lowered his eyes to the table, frowning. "What was that Hufflepuff's name who got pregnant in our fourth year?"

"I don't know," Millicent said in a guarded tone. "Why? Do you want to owl her or something?"

He rolled his eyes and stopped playing with his coffee. "Never mind. Remind me later and I'll show you some old rosters. You'll have to know how to write them by next week." He stood and grabbed the last roll off the platter. "Try not to go mad with power."

She tilted her head and smiled up at him. "Like you, you mean?"

He sighed, barely stopping it from turning into a groan. If she wasn't trying to be funny, Millicent was trying to make other people go funny in the head. This would be a _great_ professional relationship. "Exactly."

* * *

><p>He couldn't keep his mind off the letter burning a hole through his pocket. His father's loopy handwriting graced the outside. Just reading his name on the envelope or touching the blue wax that sealed it gave no clue as to what was inside. It felt like carrying a Killing Curse all day.<p>

He sat in the front of the room in Potions. Two years ago, Slytherins would have surrounded him. Now only two of his Housemates shared the class with him. He felt Pansy's absence keenly as Blaise settled in the empty seat next to him. They nodded at each other.

Blaise had been a neutral. At least the Malfoys had fought, even if one of them was on the losing side. He touched the envelope in his pocket again.

In the front of the room, Snape stepped forward. He stared past Draco at the doors. At the precise moment of eleven o'clock, he tapped the desk with his cane.

Potter and Granger slid in on the last tap. Faces flushed, they stared at Snape with wide eyes as the class turned in their seats to watch. Flinching the tiniest bit inside at the glee in Snape's narrowed eyes, Draco watched Hermione and Potter swallow at Snape's face.

"Potter. Granger. Nice of you to arrive. Please, take your seats."

Millicent and Draco shared a glance. Snape saying 'please' was a bad thing—a very, very bad thing. He faced forward in his seat. He heard the shuffle of Potter and Granger taking their seats in the back. What had those dunderheads been thinking? The idiots. Snape was a bastard _before_ he got his damn leg chopped off, and he was an _unmitigated _bastard now. They deserved whatever was coming.

Snape's thin lips curved into a half smile. Another shared glance. Foreboding filled the air like the charge of thunder. Draco resisted the urge to duck.

"I hope Miss Granger's…"—here Snape paused and savored the, dare Draco think it, _pregnant_ silence, if the gleam in his eye was anything to go by—"antics are not the cause of your delay."

Draco's eyebrows were almost on top of his head. Merlin, Granger had given Snape his own Philosopher's Stone. This would sustain him for _centuries._

No one moved. No one wanted to attract those gleaming black eyes. Only five people in the room knew what Snape alluded to, though, and behind the fear was confusion.

Snape must have sensed it, because his smile—and it was a smile now, ugly and twisted as it was—grew. He took a step forward and Draco heard a gasp he knew too well. Hermione.

The room disappeared.

Ink filled the room, blackened every crevice, came so suddenly Draco saw white spots in his eyes. His white spots had shadows, and then it was just shadows and people screaming. Someone knocked into his shoulder. Draco put his hands on the table and stuck like glue. _He_ wasn't going to go mad because of a little blindness.

"Potter!" Snape yelled. He had only been feet away before, but now he sounded like he was in the back of the room. The man could move like quicksilver.

"It's not me!" came Potter's petulant wail.

"Granger!"

They later discovered that where the lake pushed against the Potions dungeon wall had been a major battle between two factions of warring merpeople. Some of Snape's own stored Peruvian Darkness Powder fell off the shelf.

At least, that was the story Dumbledore gave them, after he spoke to merpeople. Draco didn't believe the Headmaster an inch. The walls in certain parts of the dungeon had been trembling for days, certainly, but nowhere near the amount it would take to knock something off a wall, much less a jar securely stored on the back of Snape's shelf. Besides, trembling didn't remove locks.

Dumbledore stuck with his story even after Snape shook his cane at him.

All Draco knew for sure, once he exited the room and had his sight restored, was that Weasley had a swagger in his step when he left the Great Hall with Potter and Granger.

Draco had never known a pregnant student before, besides that Hufflepuff no one seemed to know the name of, but _this_ pregnant student was turning out to have some quite supportive friends. _She_ wouldn't be forgotten, at least.

He shook his head as he left for his next class. No, she wouldn't be forgotten. Her name would be flogged in the press. Draco wouldn't underestimate just how far the vitriol would go, either. Nosy little busybodies like Longbottom's Gran, people like Molly Weasley, all those stuffy self-titled morality queens that made up the _Witch Weekly_ readership… He didn't think Hermione quite understood what would happen to her good name if she didn't get out of the country immediately. Saying her name would be dragged through the mud was a massive understatement. Through a pit filled with tar and feathers? Closer to the truth, but still a long way off from what would be done to the hero-turned-unwed mother that Hermione would become.

Maybe the world would surprise him for once, though.

Draco lost track of Granger during the next week, though whenever she was in the same room he felt a constant curious buzz underneath his skin that made him look her way. The problem, as Draco soon realized, was that she was always _there_. In his classes, in the Great Hall, in the Prefect's Office, in the library. He couldn't turn around without catching a glimpse of her hand in the air and how that made her blouse stretch across her pert breasts and—

And reminding him just how far past the off limits sign she was.

Whenever she wasn't in his immediate line of sight, one of her _suitors_ was. Goldstein, Potter, Smith – and those were just the three that came to mind immediately. There were the Creeveys and Longbottom and one of the million Weasleys. Draco was soon dizzy thinking of all these men. The list didn't even include any _Muggles _she might have slept with over the summer.

Really, it was sickening how just out in the open Granger and Potter's relationship was. They didn't even try to hide it, and Draco wondered how he could have ever thought Granger was a one man to the bed witch.

It unnerved him how many preconceptions he held about Granger that turned out _massively_ untrue. What really bothered him, though, was how much it bothered him.

He had dodged that curse. He should be wiping the sweat off his brow, focusing on composing a reply to his father's letter he would never send and generally and partying his lucky arse off. Instead, he was wondering why Hermione hadn't informed him she was sleeping with other men. He had told her, hadn't he? Not that he was sleeping with men, but that he _wasn't_ shagging other women. He spent the week chewing over Hermione's character, searching for clues in her past actions that indicated this.

His cynicism stood corrected, while underneath the naïve glasses he hid from common view broke their lenses. He hadn't hoped for love at first sight, marriage and one big dysfunctional family—if he wanted that, he would have replied to Lucius as soon as he received his letter, and even then love was a big word—but he _had_ hoped for monogamy. There were diseases, after all. His father had told the story of his grandfather's demise to him as a cautionary tale. Draco had taken it to heart, and it irked him that she would put his health in jeopardy.

However, as the week wore on, Hermione entered his mind less and less except as a minute footnote on the main body of his day.

Except when she didn't.


	4. Last Full Day

**Disclaimer:** I do not own Harry Potter. I do not seek to make profit off this work. Harry Potter and its characters belong to JKR and I am happy for her to have that title.

* * *

><p>That morning she makes a mark on her calendar as a week passes. It is now her tenth week. Twenty-six more weeks for Snape to harass and target her if she stayed. Twenty-six weeks of uninterrupted education, little worry, and sleeping in her own cottage while she spent weekends visiting her parents or going to the doctor's, all without a permission slip.<p>

_If_ she went to the Light Day School.

She rubs the bridge of her nose, already feeling a headache coming on even as she compares the possibilities of the Light Day School next to Hogwarts. No one looking over her shoulder, judging her. Six months of taking it easy while studying for her NEWTs. In May she would graduate, after having given birth, and then she wouldn't have to justify staying in school anymore.

Really, she thinks as she stares down at her calendar and the little 10 scribbled next to the date, it is a win-win situation, except more winning on her side.

It doesn't _feel_ like one, though. It feels like running away.

She gets ready, double checks her bag for homework and miscellaneous learning paraphernalia, and opens the door to find Ginny waiting, arms crossed. She doesn't look very happy, even after Hermione smiles sickly at her.

Maybe there's a good reason it feels like she's running away. She is.

"Hi, Gin," she says and hopes Ginny doesn't hear the grimace in her voice. She must, because her scowl grows. Merlin, that Ron. He couldn't keep his mouth shut! If she wasn't shaking at the sight of an angry Weasley on her doorstep, she would search him out and smack him.

Hermione straightens her blouse, hoping the action serves its purpose: to divert attention from her shaking hands. She swallows and tries a second time. No one ever said she went mad on her way to doom. "What's wrong?"

"What's wrong?" Ginny asks. "I'll tell you. You haven't talked to Harry!"

Hermione blinks, her brain running off the familiar track into the weeds. "What?"

"I talked to him and _he said_ you haven't talked to him." Ginny throws her hands into the air. "I thought we were in this together! What happened to friendship, to loyalty, to making him come back to me? This is _terrible_."

"You _spoke_ to him?" Hermione mimics her and throws her hands into the air, never mind her robe over her uniform. "I told you to stay away from him for a while."

"So jinx me," Ginny says, her hands destroying her robe collar. "I _had_ to, Hermione. You just don't understand how it is when you love someone."

"Maybe not," Hermione concedes. She also doesn't know what it means to be a flounder, but that doesn't stop her from refraining to breathe underwater. "But I know _Harry_. And, last time I checked, he still hated you. Now you may have done irreparable damage. Merlin, Ginny, it's only been a week since I asked!"

Ginny blows a raspberry.

She huffs. "Mature. Come on and walk me down to breakfast. Unless you've decided to do that on your own schedule too? Because I don't think the house-elves will approve."

Rolling her eyes, Ginny pulls her book bag higher on her shoulder and they go down the stairs and out of the common room. Breakfast smells divine when they get to the Great Hall. Hermione can't decide whether that's the pregnancy talking or just her own hunger, which could also be pregnancy related. Either way, she sits down at the far end with Harry and Ron while Ginny heads down to sit by some of her sixth year friends. Neville stops to ask Harry about something Quidditch-related and Hermione quickly tunes everything out, focusing on her breakfast. Grease, grease, grease. It's all she craves today, though she does add a roll to vary her diet. Ron scowls at her plate, his hand by his fork twitching, and she pops his wrist.

Neville eyes her plate. "Hungry, Hermione?"

She chews, not speaking, and Neville gets the hint. He grins. "You'll need the energy today. Professor Sprout has some fully grown Mandrakes for us in Greenhouse Three."

This, as it is wont to do, makes everyone taking that lesson's food drop to the bottom of their stomachs, Hermione's included.

"Mandrakes," Ron says, looking green. "That's…"

"Great, huh?" Neville, happy as a violet, grins. "Same batch that helped save Hermione. Remember, Hermione?"

"Hard to forget," Hermione says. She remembers the thought she had back then, too. She liked mandrakes better when she was an unconscious statue than as a mobile, thus mortal, human being. She puts her hand to her mouth, her fork down, when her stomach objects to this new turn of events.

"See you there!" Neville says happily before walking off. Poor Neville, whose joy spread despondency down the table, almost glowed with goodwill. Hermione slaps Ron's hand down when it raises. Even if Neville's words have made her … only slightly less hungry, he doesn't deserve a forkful of scrambled eggs to the back of the head.

* * *

><p>"We're going to cut off a slice of the Mandrake—don't worry, girls, they regenerate," Sprout adds, though no one Hermione sees looks especially glum about this. Honestly, they look a little too gleeful to cut into a Mandrake, even Neville. Sprout motions to their tables as she walks down the aisle. "We'll root them in the tubs of sand at your worktable. If you can get those ready, class…" She peered over Hannah Abbot's table at Hermione. "Mister Weasley, will you assemble Miss Granger's tub for her? I need to speak to her a moment. <em>No one<em> is to start until I return."

Harry and Ron tense on either side of her, as if Sprout just suggested they paint nude watercolors of each other. She avoids their anxious gazes.

Dread cowers in her stomach as Hermione follows Sprout to the end of the line of worktables and out of the greenhouse door. She passes Draco and its worse because _he_ avoids looking at her. She takes a deep breath when she closes the glass door behind her.

Hermione shouldn't have worried. Sprout's smile is warm and soft, just like the wind brushing her cheek.

"You're not in any trouble, girl," she says upon seeing her face. "I just wanted to inform you before class started that you can opt out of this lesson if you wish. The earmuffs should keep out the screams and we're stunning any that make a fuss, anyway, but it_ is_ dangerous." Her eyes dart to Hermione's stomach.

"Opt out?" She has never heard of a professor offering this. Not even when Amber Greedy, a Hufflepuff seventh year, was pregnant during Hermione fourth year. Hermione had been distracted with the drama between the boys and then with Viktor, but in the dorms girls had gathered nightly for the updates on Greedy's pregnancy, whispers of horror and ridicule as common as hairbrushes. Hermione had been one of the horrified number. Who could risk Hogwarts like that?

"I can give you some errands if you're spare for something to do," Sprout says. Her lips twist wryly, because they both know Hermione has nary an unused minute in her daily schedule.

"That's a very"—_bewildering, puzzling, baffling_—"nice offer," she says, after a careful choice of adjectives that don't end with –ing. "But have you offered this to a student before?"

Sprout's head pulls back. Her eyebrows raise and Hermione drops her eyes quickly—but why? She makes herself look up again. She is not intimidated just because she is pregnant. She is still _Hermione Granger_ regardless of the belly.

"Well, not exactly." Sprout sounds as careful as her. Her head tilts as she studies Hermione. Hermione stares back. After a few seconds of silence, Sprout stops assessing her and breaks. "If you're sure you want to stay…"

Hermione tries to imagine her child independent of her body, grown, looking at her in this moment. It has no face, no sex—it's just there, considering her, waiting for her answer.

"I am," Hermione says. Her fists clench and she forces herself to unclench them. She doesn't want cockroaches like Skeeter saying there was any preferential treatment going on in her final days at Hogwarts.

She couldn't stand the shame.

"If you're sure…" Sprout trails off, the hope in her eyes disappearing after Hermione nods. She sighs and motions with both hands toward the door. At least she doesn't drag it out.

Harry and Ron relax upon seeing her, as if they expected to find Hermione drawn and quartered when they left the lesson. Hermione slips back between them, accepting the comfort their glances give, and reflects on the spirit with which she's been received by most of the staff and her friends. No condemnation, no hate. Rumors and whispers, of course, and a certain protectiveness; but beyond Snape and McGonagall, the two most unlikely bedfellows, there's nothing like she expected. Even Dumbledore had seemed rather blasé about it. Now she wonders how well Ginny would react if she told her.

It is the first interruption of her last day at Hogwarts.

* * *

><p>"So, Hermione, your last day," Zacharias says. He nods to Hannah as she leaves the Prefect's Office with the other prefects, but doesn't seem interested in following them out. He leans on the desk in front of Hermione, where she has spent the last half hour outlining the next week's patrol schedule, Millicent having passed on it when Hermione approached her after breakfast.<p>

"Yep." Ron and Harry's gossip darts through her head and she shakes it, not giving credence to the ridiculous thought as she packs her bag.

"And, actually," she feels compelled to add, "the Headmaster allowed me this week to decide if I wanted to stay."

He straightens, stops admiring his nails to raise his head. "And? Have you decided?"

She looks around instead of answering. Draco stands by the door and his eyes catch and hold hers. It makes her think he's been waiting for her to notice him. His head tilts toward the door, a movement so minute Hermione could have blinked and missed it. It's instinctive, the reaction between her thighs, the tightening and rush.

She looks back at Zacharias and smiles. "I don't know yet," her mouth says without her. Shock runs through her arms, her stomach, freezing that mad rush of lust. She reins in her mouth, wishing she could smack it. Instead, she makes it say what _she_ wants it to say. "There's going to be a small going away party in the old D.A. room on Saturday, if I do go. You're invited."

"Much as I love a party," Zacharias says, a teasing curl to his mouth, "I hope it's a staying in Hogwarts one."

She doesn't know what to say to that, or to the expression in his eyes, so Hermione bids him a quick goodbye before exiting the Prefect's Office. She pauses at the end of the hall. Draco walks behind her at his normal not running after anyone and that includes you, Granger pace. She smiles at Zacharias as he goes past.

Sighing when Draco does finally catch up to her, she squints up at him. "What?"

Draco shows no concern about her eagerness to get to her next class. Considering her next class is Transfigurations, she isn't that eager, come to think of it. He leans on the wall opposite and eyes the passing students with Crookshanks' level laziness. Almost idly, he says, "Guess it's not Smith then."

She huffs through her nose. Hadn't he dodged that bullet? Why does he insist on talking to her, on… _seeing_ her. The truth about Zacharias has her nerves on edge already; she has never been so blind before. Now she has to tell Harry that he's _right_, damn him.

"Would you stop? I'm not going to tell you."

"Smith is still stumbling around asking you to Hogsmeade," Draco continues as if he doesn't hear her. "And you, smiling and laughing with him. Making eyes." He turns and flutters his eyelashes at her.

This time she has to bite her tongue, but it's because she wants to smile. Or bite him. The problem, she thinks, is that he is everywhere she looks. The Prefect's Office, the greenhouses, the Great Hall. The only place she escapes him is Gryffindor Tower, and he's still in her thoughts. Constant, repetitious, wearing down on her nerves. At least she is past wanting to scream when she sees him. The thought makes her weary now.

But Draco…thinking of him, catching his eyes like before…there's still heat there. _A lot_ of heat. That makes her wary, in addition to weary. She thought that would have disappeared by now, since it has already turned her life upside down.

The body never learns.

"I heard there were things you could do. In the Muggle world," he clarifies, when she only raises her eyebrows. He is the wary one now, not quite looking at her face.

Her lips press together. "There's so many hoops to jump through. It's not viable." Skeeter and her vicious cronies would be on her like strays on a prime steak. She shakes her head. No. She won't subject her parents or Mrs. Weasley to that. Or herself. "I'm sure there are potions that would do the job for me, but…"

"You don't want to?"

"I'm scared to, honestly," she says. "And don't tell anyone I said that."

"Here I planned to send out a newsletter."

"Well don't," she says. She shifts; not caring that it is rude, she glances at her watch.

Draco is a step closer when she raises her head. Her wariness returns full force, with interest for being neglected those few seconds. He tilts his head toward the Prefect's Office, empty now that the meeting is over. Eyes flashing with mischief, he wets his lips.

"How about it?"

Though he doesn't move besides that one step, Hermione backs well out of range of his hands, her glance darting to the Entrance Hall. It's empty. And she is alone with Draco. That is bad. Not only does it mean she is late for Transfigurations—correction,_ they_ are late for Transfigurations—it means she is alone with Draco Malfoy.

"Come on, Granger. You scared?"

She sees what he is trying to do. It has never worked before. It will not work now. "I'm _sane_."

He checks her over, a slow glance down and then back up, and there is that tightness again, that rush between her thighs that makes her dizzy and so very, very aware simultaneously. Aware of him, his body leaning forward, his tongue that slips out to re-wet his lips. Times like this she becomes the greatest Legilimens in the castle. He doesn't want to wait. He wants to push her against the wall, right here right now, where anyone could see his hands open her robes, slide her skirt up, his lips sear that spot by her shoulder he finds every time. He will do it if she lets him, if she hesitates the smallest bit.

She doesn't hesitate.

"They'll catch us, sooner or later," she says. "And they'll find out about me. Sooner or later. You'll be the logical choice for them, then."

Draco stares at her. Seconds tick away as he studies her, and she is certain he sees more than Sprout did this morning. She wants to know what he sees, _how_ he sees her—and then she strikes that thought for the irrationality that it is.

He steps back and relief and disappointment mix so strongly in her chest she doesn't know why she sighs.

"Guess Potter wouldn't like that," he says. That look is still in his eyes, as if he is still considering, as if he wants to press her shoulders against the wall and his fingers into her thighs. His smirk is as lazy as before. "Still. Would be fun."

Half of Hermione wants it too.

"We're adults now," Hermione says, wrapping the words around her like a security blanket, secure from his looks and his wants and her own. "We're accountable to more than ourselves now, too. We're icons for the next generation."

"Potter sung that song to you too?" Draco laughs. It isn't kind.

She starts walking. Hermione won't put up with that kind of nonsense, no matter how he makes her feel. Dismay clutches her when she hears his steps echoing on the marble behind her.

She raises her chin. Let him. He can go on to Transfigurations. She has decided otherwise, to—she swallows and then steels herself—skive off. Bearing McGonagall's disappointment again is something she just can't bring herself to do. She should thank Malfoy, really. She would have gone ahead if he hadn't waylaid her and made her late.

The problem is that Malfoy doesn't turn off at the first staircase. Or the second staircase. The stairs tremble as soon as they step on, Draco like a Grim at her heels, and the stairs immediately move to a level Hermione doesn't want. The next one does the same, and this time Draco's breath is on the back of her head, his fingertips lightly—oh so lightly—touching the back of her skirt. She could mistake them for the skirt trembling with her legs, the force of the wind the stairs make as they move, but doesn't. A breath. She's done for, done even before he moves her hair off her shoulder.

Closing her eyes, she pretends it's someone else pressing cold lips against her neck. Someone without pale blond hair or handsome-not so handsome features. She can't. It's unmistakably Malfoy. He's like a purple bruise on the inside of your elbow: you can't ignore him.

The stairs choose a landing to settle on. Hermione steps off, watchful eyes on the corridor, and they set off. He doesn't stop touching her. He presses his chest to her back as she stops at corners and checks for Filch. His fingers linger on her hips. His hands reach out for her wrists as their steps echo in sync down the corridor. Her spit is heavy in her mouth. It's hard to swallow.

He doesn't turn off at the entrance to the library. Honestly, she doesn't try stopping. He makes a noise that sounds like victory. It is fear, and wild, wild temptation that eggs her on, brimming like tacks under her skin, that takes her to the secret staircase that everybody knows about. To the fourth floor. His sharp inhale makes her face even hotter. He remembers. His fingers dig into her hips.

But he pulls her into a nook instead, another one, in clear view of the corridor, instead of one of the five empty classrooms around them. They know they are empty, still being renovated from when the Acromantulas broke the walls. They have explored these rooms before, though explored is not the technical term.

She pulls her arm out of his grip. "Malfoy."

She isn't fooling him. She isn't fooling herself. _Why else lead him up here?_

"Come on," he whispers, his hand sliding down her other arm. "It's not as if we have anything to worry about."

If Dean had tried that on Lavender, Hermione would have snorted when Lavender recapped the night later in the dorm. She would have rolled her eyes and agreed with Lavender that, yes, the boy was a legitimate pig-turned-human who shouldn't be allowed to procreate, much less hit on witches.

Hermione isn't Lavender, and Draco—she shivers—Draco is certainly not Dean.

He can read her face, the tense line of her body so well. His eyes soften, now that he knows he'll get what he wants. They crinkle at the corners, but his triumph is there at his mouth, twitching his pale lips. "Let me."

"You're not doing me any favours," she tells him, maybe a little too sharply.

His lips just curl more. "Of course not."

"Don't act like you are."

He leans down, nudging her hair back as his fingers slide between her robes. He murmurs in her ear, warm and silky, "Absolutely not."

She presses against his stomach, but lightly. Softens her voice. "Let's go into the classroom."

"Doors," Draco says vaguely, his attention more on pulling her hips against his, hands curved over her arse like he is considering picking her up. "I like doors."

She pulls away and he follows. She looks at him over her shoulder and his eyes are nowhere but on her, so alive and burning for her, his hands trailing after her as if she holds his leash, her senses delirious and drunk on him, and Merlin, he gives her this control so readily, it is no wonder she is addicted.

"This is the last time," she tells him as he sets her on the lone desk. The door, closed and warded, shuts on the possibility of her going back.

"Yeah," he agrees, popping the buttons on her blouse, his lips shining and her lip-gloss smeared across her cheek. "Yeah, definitely."


	5. Repercussions

**Disclaimer:** I do not own Harry Potter. I do not seek to make profit off this work. Harry Potter and its characters belong to JKR and I am happy for her to have that title.

* * *

><p>"I think I underestimated being your dirty secret," Draco says later. He has a cigarette. He picked the habit up sometime after he moved into Grimmauld Place. Always out of sight of his mother, always a quick smoke in the garden at dawn. She doesn't know who could have taught him. Just one day he was smoking, the previous day he had not. He had never stopped.<p>

Now he blows a stream of blue-grey smoke out of his nose, his ankles crossed as he lounges against the wall by the open window. He could be in black and whites. He has a certain Fred Astaire quality. Too pointy, not very handsome—until he starts dancing his fingers across her thighs, or looks at her from across the Prefect's Office, or gasps such rushed, passionate words against her mouth that sizzle like raindrops on a campfire.

Checking her watch, she begins gathering her robes and shoes, which she forgot she kicked off.

"Almost lunch," she tells him as she slips her shoes back on and unties then reties the laces. "You underestimated it? That's not like you."

Another stream of smoke is blown out, her way this time. "Funny. You're not planning on doing anything noble"—and he says this like _diseased_—"like tell Potter, right?"

She imagines Harry's face, and then she imagines the destroyed common room from the force of his head exploding. She shakes her head.

"Good thing," Draco says. He takes one last puff, exhales it quickly, as if it tastes bad, and then stubs out the cigarette on the sill. Her mouth twists. Whoever gets this classroom won't like burn marks everywhere. The smell floats her way, riding Draco as he walks toward her. It stinks, worse than burned rubber. She wrinkles her nose as he lingers by her knees, preoccupied with the hem of her skirt.

She doesn't say anything. She doesn't know why. She looks into his face and he is staring at her skirt, watching his finger trace the edge, skip down to her thigh and then back up to her skirt. Something is on his mind. She doesn't notice the smell anymore, or maybe it's gone. She finds herself holding her breath as she tilts her head back.

"There are spells," he says finally.

She drops her head to pinch her lips at him. "I told you."

"Not that," he says, voice wary and distant, like a first year peeking around a corner for professors. "Old spells. Pureblood spells. Families used them in the old days, when we still fought each other."

"Oh, so not like now?"

His lips quirk, but he doesn't smile. He glances up at her, quick, those eyes peeking out again, but closer. "No. Not like now. Real feuds, betrayals, and murder. You don't know much about pureblood history do you?" He returns to playing with her skirt when she shakes her head, his hair falling across his forehead as he stares down. "You should. Give Potter's baby some history since he doesn't know any of his."

"Stop guessing."

Lips twitching, he asks, "Am I close?"

"Pureblood history," she prods him, with her voice and her shoe in his knee.

"The Blacks were real bastards," Draco says, still preoccupied, still peeking at her as if he is afraid she will scream and run off. "They killed pregnant purebloods whenever they could. Them and this other family, the Heartrises. They've run out now. But it was always a big deal for a witch to get pregnant, so there were precautions if she was pureblood. The spells let them hide their pregnancies. The bulges and things. Not even blood could see anything. You've seen Millicent's mother? She used it, last year."

"She was _pregnant_ during the war? But wasn't she…"

"Dueling my father?" This time there's no emotion in his voice. "Yeah. You can use it for that too. _You_ shouldn't do it for that, though. Mrs. Bulstrode is war-mad, and besides, she's a close friend of Narcissa's. She took it as her right."

_Narcissa_ and _my father_. Two very different terms. She wonders what it means for him. She cannot speculate; he is alien to her in this moment. He's never said anything about his relationship with his family before. Maybe he thought it was unsafe, then. Now that the possibility of her attaching herself to him and demanding a relationship is gone, maybe he figures he might as well.

Maybe he's bored. Maybe he's in love. She was never very good at determining his motives to sleep with her.

She doesn't comment on her thoughts. She focuses on something else. "It hides everything?"

His fingers dance over her skirt, between the last buttons she has left to button. Brushes over her stomach as if it's an exquisite piece of china. It's too dark in the classroom to see his eyes. Then again, Hermione is far too attuned to this boy. They're wide, shaded black, they're transfixed on his hand tickling her stomach with his fingertip caresses. He breathes through his mouth. "The last few months, I might see a slight bump. Nothing else. Stay here for lunch; go to the kitchens later."

"Draco," she sighs.

He catches her hand when she tries to push him away, his smile twisty now, his head up and his eyes lazy again. "I have to teach you the spell, don't I?"

Who is this boy and how did he kill Draco Malfoy? She almost wants to check his Mark, make sure he is still the evil bastard she used to think he was. She has seen this side of him before—in the house he shares with Mrs. Malfoy, in the classroom across the corridor, whispering in her ear before a meeting in the Prefect's Office. The surprise of it will never fade for Hermione. She wants to bite her lip. He leans forward and does it for her.

"Let me," he says, laughing as she pinches his arm. His other hand curls around her knee and pulls her legs open. He moves into the space he created, but she is seated too far back for any hanky-panky. He laughs again when he realizes this, and they get into a brief tug of war over where she is sitting.

"Quit," she laughs into his neck. "I'm too hungry."

"Cannibalism," Draco suggests. "You don't need that leg."

"Altruistic. I like it. _However—_"

"There's always your right arm. You don't really use it."

"Great for balance, though," she says.

Making a face, he steps back and tugs her until her feet are firmly on the floor. He doesn't let go of her hand immediately. His warmth remains when he does. He straightens his robes as they exit the classroom. It closes with a click.

When she said it was the last time, she meant it. Let's hope he did too.

They separate at the prefect's private bath. Magic isn't enough sometimes, hygienically speaking. They don't touch or kiss or do anything soppy before he leaves. Too much risk now, and Draco isn't that besotted boy from the classroom anymore. He is back to plain Draco Malfoy, cool ex-Death Eater and Order spy. The pureblood who, while firmly on the winning side of things, wouldn't be seen undressing a Muggleborn. Not because of wards on the door, but because he wouldn't do it. They don't dislike each other in public. Before this happened, Hermione occasionally called him a friend, though always out of hearing, just in case. Now they are on more solid ground.

It's funny, she thinks as she wrings out a towel, I had to have sex with him before I could really call him my friend. Isn't it normally the other way round?

She realizes when she reaches the Entrance Hall that, in all her flurry, she forgot her bookbag in the Prefect's Office. Luckily, it's right there. Otherwise she would have never got back from the fourth floor and had time to eat lunch _and_ get to Charms class on time. She doesn't want to miss anymore of her last classes today.

As she comes back with her bag, she meets Bill Weasley just as the castle doors close behind him with a bang. They greet, Hermione beaming, while Harry and Ron stroll through the open doors to Great Hall. They must have seen him from their seats. Bill's nose is still twitching when they reach them.

It's the wide-eyed shock on Bill's face that clues her in.

He opens his mouth.

"Don't!" she cries, horrified as Ron and Harry come closer. Bill _knows _and she told Malfoy, she told him, and _Bill knows._

As pale as Malfoy, he lowers his voice, a worried glance to the boys. "You know, then?" His gaze dips to her stomach like a forbidden thing.

Oh, the _pregnancy._ Now she feels like a total twit.

"Not a lot of people know yet," she tells him as Harry comes up beside her, Ron completing the little circle. She nods to them. "They do. I just didn't want you to shout. You looked like you were going to shout, you know."

She releases a tight breath as Harry puts his hand on her shoulder.

"How did you know?" he asks.

"Blood flow is different," Bill says, tapping his nose, which makes the three scrunch theirs. Yuck. One more reason that she fears Greyback roaming the countryside, on the run since the tide turned. She shivers.

"You on your break? You can come and sit by us at lunch."

Bill turns to his little brother, casting one last look of concern Hermione's way. "Meeting with Dumbledore," he says. "But yeah, I think I can spare a few for lunch."

Harry and Hermione catch each other's eyes. Yes, it did sound like he changed his mind last-minute.

They enter the Great Hall together. The ceiling is as sunny and clear as it was that morning. Harry sticks to her side like a burr, while Ron gets into the pleasantness his brother's rare visit and sits by him across from Hermione and Harry. They fill their plates and the first bites of food are delicious.

Bill waves at some of the students he met during the last year of the war, and at the Head table. Unfortunately, his focus—and frown—is mostly saved for Hermione. She glances around for Ginny, but she isn't there. No rescue.

"Don't look like that," he says, his eyebrows lowered in consternation, the scar slashing his face red with agitation. "I'm not going to scold you."

Hermione releases another breath, not so quiet this time, as her goblet rattles as she sets it down. Harry rubs her arm briefly, not long enough to power up the rumour mill made up of the students around them, but long enough to transfer a little of his strength.

Bill's stare is full of concern. A tiny part of her wishes it wasn't. Everyone has been _too nice,_ too accommodating. It makes Hermione's instincts tingle. The blow up will come soon. Snape's fit wasn't enough. _Nice_ doesn't last, not at Hogwarts.

"I know spells that would…" He trails off. His eyes, the pinched, worried expression reminds Hermione of Mr. Weasley. She knows how he will finish his sentence, just as he does.

"…make it not a problem."

"_You_ know spells?" Ron's tone could freeze a hot frying pan.

Bill doesn't flinch, just gives his brother a warning glance. She admires that glance. Bill might be able to handle questions like that coolly, but Hermione would burst into tears.

Above all, she doesn't want to be selfish.

Wearily, she says, "Thanks but no thanks, Bill."

"People won't know, if that's what…" She shakes her head again and he sighs. The skin around his eyes tightens. He looks genuinely disgusted as he leans toward her. "Your life shouldn't be ruined because of a mistake. You don't have to let it. No one's been pressuring you, have they?" He glances at Ron again, less brotherly.

"I can't," Hermione says, the truest words she has said all week.

That is that.

"Okay," Bill says. He isn't happy. He throws his napkin on his plate without touching anything.

She leans forward. "Can you just tell your mum, when you see her? Ask her if she'll keep it within the family? I don't want people to find out."

"They will find out," Bill says.

She thinks about Draco's offer. "They don't have to."

"So you're staying?" Harry asks her. She pulls her eyes away from Bill to look at him. His eyebrows are drawn above his glasses, his fingers touching her arm as if she might pull away. Harry and Ron, they've been so great, rallying around her this past week. She knows it won't last long—school, other friends, and prefect and Quidditch duties will pull them away before she gets used to their full attention.

"Were you going somewhere?" Bill asks. Her slowly returning good mood goes as rigid as her back at his tone.

Her voice is much cooler when she says, "I was accepted at the Light Day School. My neighbour's aunt has a cottage she lets nearby."

"So you were running away?"

"It's _my business,_ Bill Weasley," she tells him, voice as sharp as Snape's. "You keep your nose out of it."

"Ahem."

Hermione's eyes close. Her breath hisses between her clenched teeth.

Slowly, she turns on the bench.

"You're absence was noted, Miss Granger."

"Yes, Professor. I apologize. I was… ah."

"Ah," McGonagall repeats in her most distasteful tone. "A likely story." She glances at her tablemates like Crookshanks assessing and dismissing other cats as prey. "Mister Weasley. Bill," she corrects herself. "The Headmaster is ready to receive you."

"Oh. Well then." Bill gives Hermione one last look, like 'this isn't over yet.' She gives one back that says, 'yes, it is.'

He flicks his gaze to Harry and Ron and then stands. "I'll see you three later."

He hasn't even left the table before McGonagall returns her attention to Hermione. "A word, Miss Granger."

She doesn't think it will be a _nice _word.

"Yes, Professor." Hermione resists sighing by sheer, mad effort. She consoles herself as she follows the professor toward the wall, out of hearing vicinity of the tables.

She faces Hermione, her fingers touching in front of her stomach. Her thinking stance. Hermione recognizes it from meetings when she had bad news to give. Luna. Cho. The Patil family. Pansy.

Professor Lupin.

Hermione shifts. She doesn't like thinking about that in her waking hours. She puts her hand to her stomach—at least Teddy will have someone near his age to play with—and drops it quickly in case someone sees.

McGonagall does. Her lips turn white as she tightens them.

"Miss Granger, I would like to know why you have avoided my guidance since you informed me of your condition. I am your Head of House still, childhood _and_ adulthood alike. Then you skipped my lesson today. It is simply unacceptable."

"I-I'm sorry, Professor. It's reprehensible. I don't know w-what got into me—"

Her chin wobbles and she _hates this_. She tried and tried and one mistake is ruining her life, just as Bill said. She has been the best, the overachiever, the one who kept reaching for the stars, always. Someone McGonagall used to trust to do well, and she has failed her so badly.

"Now now, don't cry, girl," McGonagall says. It's like Crookshanks trying to parent a mouse. She huffs when Hermione turns her head toward the wall, away from her, and murmurs, "I knew I should have brought you to my office."

"Please, Professor, can I go now?"

"_No_, Miss Granger," she says, fierce as Crookshanks still. "We need to fix this situation between us, whether or not you transfer to the Light Day School. The professors at that school will not know the signs, as I do, that you are under stress and need a leg up. They will let you continue as you are because they know no better and you will be no better than a sack of rags when they finish with you."

Hermione doesn't turn her head back toward her, but she does dare to open her eyes. "What do you mean, Professor?"

_Why do you care?_

Her eyes rather more like her Animagus form than her human form, she studies Hermione with cool intent. "I do not accept substandard work from you, Miss Granger. _They_ will." Voice full of cold scorn, she says, "I hope you have been considering this during this week the Headmaster asked of you."

"Not really," Hermione reluctantly admits.

"Well, if this is simply a move because of your condition, then so be it. However"—and this is where the challenge enters her voice—"if you intend to succeed, you need mentors who will care for you personally rather than as a celebrity to provide fodder for their admissions fees."

This cannot be. Has McGonagall changed her mind since that first meeting? Hermione lifts her head, inch by inch, until her eyes meet McGonagall's. Neither looks away. Too nice, she remembers. Things will blow up soon.

"You're not angry?" she whispers.

"I am plenty angry," McGonagall says, making Hermione flinch. "And whether or not this is your last weekend at Hogwarts, I expect a twelve inches on sharing with your mentors due Sunday. I do _not_ like empty chairs in my lessons."

It's not a conversation about missing one lesson, though Hermione thinks it is the crux of the reason the professor interrupted her lunch. The excuse, not the basis.

"Yes, Professor," she says. They both know twelve inches is a breeze for her.

McGonagall nods like a heron. "Then the matter is settled. I don't want to hear about it again." She takes a breath and the lines around her eyes shrink. "Now, there are spells my family used to cast in the old days. A binding spell. You will still grow bigger under your clothes, but other people will not notice anything different."

So Draco exaggerated the spell. Or maybe he just doesn't know, since he isn't a witch.

"I would like to try it, Professor. I want as little a fuss as possible."

McGonagall's lips twitch in amusement. "We don't always get what we want." Hermione blinks, shooing the rest of the Rolling Stone song out of her head. McGonagall puts her hand inside her robes and hands over the envelope she pulls out. Sealed, Hermione notices when she turns it over. The professor must not want anybody else knowing her family spells.

_And Draco offered his. For nothing._

She swallows and says, to get her mind off it, "I didn't know you were pureblood, Professor."

"So you've researched these kinds of spells already. Good. To answer your question, however, yes. 'Go to a McGonagall if you want sheer bloody-minded stubbornness.'"

"A proverb?" Hermione asks.

McGonagall's lips twitch again. "Something like that."

Hermione looks at the envelope again and then nods to her. "Thank you for this, Professor. And I apologize again for missing your class."

"Keep it to yourself," McGonagall says, motioning to the envelope. "As to the class, I expect you early Monday morning so we can discuss a permanent weekend pass."

Walking away with a lighter step than she had walked toward with, Hermione wonders why only Dumbledore is called the omniscient one. Professor McGonagall has some all-knowing qualities herself. For example, she always knows what Hermione wants to do, compared to what she _should_ do, and why.

She always knows what Hermione _will_ do.

The Head's room is kept where both sexes could reach her in the event of emergency and/or ordinary first year away from home crying. Usually she kept the door open to the common room as an unconscious signal that she welcomes questions and the aforementioned crying. Not tonight. She smiles at Dean Thomas, sitting on the landing outside her door, his sketchpad open as he overlooks the common room below, and Hermione shuts him and the rest of Gryffindor out.

Ron, sitting at her desk with his collection of chocolate frog cards spread out on top, makes an enquiring noise. "When do you think we'll be collectibles?"

"Didn't you hear?" Harry shifts on the bed to look at Ron. "That witch in Fairfax, the one who has a lock of your hair. Bought if for thirty galleons, didn't she? You're already a collectible."

Lowering herself onto the end of the bed, Hermione frowns. "I never heard that. Was it in the paper?"

But Harry's already snorting and Ron, face flushed and ugly in embarrassment, levitates a pillow at his face. Breathless, Harry dodges. "Your expression—!"

Ron scowls. "I'm worth _fifty, _at least."

"Of course you are," Harry says, and she smacks his leg because she recognizes that condescending tone as an imitation of her own.

"I have my own question."

Brows rising, Harry nods her onward. She watches out of her peripheral as Ron sits up. Hermione stops frowning at the floor and says, "How come neither of you have tried to talk me out of leaving?"

"Oh, were you serious about that?"

"I—ah…!"

Harry leans over to close her open mouth. She glares. The _gall._ "Kidding, Hermione." He shoots Ron an amused glance that goes over well. Harry sits back and continues. "We just kind of hoped for the best… at least I did." Ron nods when she looks over.

"If you want, we could beg."

"I'll pass." Shaking her head, she wonders what possessed her to befriend these two boys in first year. Possibly the troll intent on bashing her head in. There's that cementing them forever. Voldemort, too, she supposes. She sighs—too late now—and then glances up and laughs at Harry's confused face.

"Something funny?"

"No." She reaches over to rub his knee and looks at Ron. "A talk _would _have been nice, you know. Otherwise I'm going to start believing you're as ridiculous as Trelawney."

"Ridiculously _talented_," Ron says. "That's us. I have prophetic dreams all the time."

Harry primly adjusts his glasses, looking rather like Percy in a Harry-suit. "About Lavender."

Hermione ducks as another pillow flies their way.

No, it is positively too late now, and as her pillows get a fantastic beating, she can't help but be thankful.


	6. Regular Saturday

"So," Professor McGonagall begins after Hermione sits down in the chair before her desk, "how are you feeling?"

Hermione folds her arms. A painful sore had developed inside her left cheek sometime in the last day. She keeps her eyes on the wall slightly above McGonagall's head.

"Fine, Professor. And you?"

Professor McGonagall's withering stare doesn't catch her unawares. She returns it with a shrug.

"I'm fine. Honest."

McGonagall taps a nail on the ink blotter on her desk. "Yes, it sounds quite _fine, _Miss Granger. Do you care to explain just _how _fine you really are while keeping in mind our long acquaintance with each other?"

Hermione, sighing, unfolds her arms. She doesn't feel like apologizing, however. She allows her eyes to drop to the floor and hopes that looks apologetic enough for Professor McGonagall.

"People are idiots."

McGonagall's lips twitch. "If you are only becoming aware of this fact, Miss Granger, I will really think your Hogwarts education has left you sadly bereft in social cues."

Hermione closes her eyes. She should have remembered that McGonagall, her mentor, would not back down when she had an attitude problem, unlike Ron and—mostly—Harry. Ron has learned the hard way from their many blow-ups throughout the years. Harry, however, has often received special treatment from Hermione since he was more rational than Ron allowed himself to be.

McGonagall, however, has nothing to do with Hermione's situation, is actively trying to help her keep her equilibrium during a troubled time, and does not deserve attitude.

"Sorry, Professor," she says, lifting a hand to rub the circle of pain between her eyebrows. "I haven't been sleeping well and I'm afraid it has affected my—" She stops, remembering that morning's talk with Ron and Harry and fury regains its hold on her, then abruptly washes away with regret. She sighs. "Well, everything. It's affected everything."

Her Head of House relaxes back into her chair. "Go on, if you please."

She does. "Ron is being a prat about this entire situation and it's not even about anything I'm doing, but about the letter his _brother _sent me if I changed my mind about wanting to abort the pregnancy. I've told him twelve times now that I don't want to go down that route, but _he's_ acting as if—" She blows out a breath of hot air. "It's just stupid."

"Perhaps his insecurities will cease as time goes on," McGonagall says. Her cat eyes flick toward her clenched hands at the end of the armrest and her lips tense on her face. "Is Mr. Weasley pressuring you to keep the babe?"

Shaking her head, Hermione forces herself to unclench her hands. She shakes them out, surprised to find they were cramped. She looks at McGonagall. "No. No pressure."

Just desire, really. Oh, how easily she could get out of her predicament. How quickly, and with no one ever the wiser. Skeeter would never get a chance write horrible things about her. Her parents would never have to find out. Snape wouldn't have anything to hold over her head. Ron would be a problem, but he would get over himself eventually. She's sure Harry would understand.

Malfoy…

She clears her thoughts. No, there is no possibility of her aborting the child. She admires the women who could summon the strength to do such an action, but she is not one of them. She understands biology and knew the consequences of her actions could result in new life. She just never understood how hard it would be to deal with the aftermath.

She stares at the knees of her school robes. A loose string clings to the black fabric. She doesn't pluck it off. It didn't ask to be put there, after all. It was only a mistake and Hermione had no right to throw it from her body and into the trash.

Closing her eyes, she realizes it may have been a mistake not to cancel this meeting.

"Miss Granger." McGonagall sounds alarmed at her silence, or maybe she senses the tears beneath Hermione's closed eyelids. She pauses. "Hermione. Look at me."

She does, blinking harshly to stop any treacherous tears.

McGonagall reaches across the desk towards her. "Hermione. You have every right to do what you wish. It is your right as a woman and a mother to do what is best for a child. A child deserves the best home possible, and not every woman is ready to provide when she is pregnant. You may have support, Hermione, and many other qualities that would make you an acceptable mother, but it does not seem as if you _want _this babe."

"I don't," she says, and sobs. "God, Professor, I _don't._"

But she does. Some sick, twisted, know-it-all part of her wants to prove to the whole damn world that she is better than them, wants them to eat it up that she is just as amazing as Harry Bloody Potter and can earn all of her N.E.W.T.s a month after having a baby. She wants to be a mother _and_ excellent in her career. She bloody well wants it all, to show up those who thought a Mudblood couldn't belong in the world by raising a damn powerful child.

She just wants all this _attention _to stop. Harry and his touching, the big doe eyes, because she can see straight past that. Malfoy and his sodding face. Ron and his righteous fucking lectures.

She knows she is slightly crazy.

"But," she starts, pulling herself together. It's become easier to do since she's had eight of these spells since she told Dumbledore. She inhales, purging the tightness in her lungs with the cool Hogwarts air. "But… I want this child," she admits. It's the first time she has spoken the words aloud, though not the first time she has thought about it. Professor McGonagall doesn't look too thrilled with her statement, but she doesn't seem angry either. Worried, is what Hermione would say, if asked to pinpoint the expression on McGonagall's face.

She explains further, wiping at her wet cheeks. "Financially, it's going to be a burden, but I think it would be a bigger burden if I went the other route. I've learned too much about regret from Harry and Sirius, Professor. I don't want to experience it firsthand." She gave a shaky smile. "Besides, you remember how much my mum adores baby photographs."

From the slight shudder she gives, McGonagall remembers. Mrs. Granger has always had a terrible fondness for showing off Hermione's baby photos to anyone and everyone who walked under her roof. The telephone repairman had seen more of Hermione's three-year-old naked self than her pediatrician, Hermione's sure.

McGonagall clears her throat and starts arranging the inkblotter on her desk. "Yes, your mother is quite the amateur photographer. Anyways. Besides the point. I would like to talk about how you will get to your appointments at St. Mungo's. You expressed a desire to go by yourself, I believe that is what you told the Headmaster?"

Hermione nods. It would keep the speculation at a minimum if she could travel alone and not involve Aurors or whoever else Dumbledore or Kingsley would push on her, since Kingsley was Acting Minister.

It does make her lips twitch, however, that McGonagall remembers her mother so readily. Hermione is almost looking forward to telling her the news, although she hates that she has such news in the first place.

_Chin up, Granger._

*

Hermione spends the rest of the morning in the Prefect's Chamber, reading through patrol reports and marking them as complete or otherwise. No one has been stirring up too much trouble, thankfully. A few couples too eager to shag in the rubble of Hogwarts—bloody spectators, she thinks. She has a right to be offended. It's different with her and Malfoy; they weren't doing it for the thrill of shagging in a famous spot where such-and-such was killed. They had actually participated in some of those fights. Though Hermione had only killed two people—that she knew of—Malfoy had been the last person several Death Eaters had seen before they died.

She sits back, rubbing her wrist as she does so. She doesn't want to think about that day either. The day they won back Hogwarts. Even if it her love life had been calmer in those days. Her and Ginny's conversations about Ginny's relationship with Harry had been the closest she had been to a love life since Viktor Krum.

Speaking of Viktor, she should inform him as well. It would be cruel for him to be informed by the newspapers when they were still pen pals.

"I know what you mean," Draco says from his spot on the couch. She glances over from the table to watch his head drop back onto the back of the couch. His hand pats his left pocket, where she knows he keeps his pack of cigarettes. "Weasley is worse than Hagrid's half-brother when it comes to grammar. How can you stand rewriting his papers for him?"

"I _don't_ rewrite his papers." She sniffs and turns back to her own stack of paperwork.

"Just as I'm positive Snape _doesn't_ prefer his Slytherins to everyone else."

"_Professor _Snape, Malfoy."

"_Mister_ Malfoy, Granger."

"Oh, _hush, _Malfoy, _please_."

Dropping her forehead to the desk hurt, but the pain distracts her from her intense annoyance at Draco. She turns her head to look at him, face plastered against the wood. "Why won't you just go away?"

He looks back at her, lips quirked. "Why won't you make me?"

She lifts her head off the table then, but only to plead to the heavens, "What have I done? Why me?" She's genuinely interested, if only because she feels like pancake batter that's slipped under the skillet and is being fried by the flames.

"Incredibly original, Granger. I'm astounded by your creativity."

Closing her eyes, she wonders how she ever became involved with Draco in the first place. Divine intervention, most likely, because right now it feels like not enough Firewhiskey in the world would have gotten her so pissed as to sleep with him by itself.

Well, at least it's over between them. Once and for all.

"You look ill, Granger."

She ignores him and pushes her hair out of her face, tearing out a few strands in the process. It isn't the first time Malfoy's made her pull her hair out.

Hearing Draco sigh from the other side of the room doesn't help any. She gives her wrist one last rub and then begins on Smith's night patrol report. Zacharias has perfect grammar, even with being the Chaser on the Hufflepuff team. Ron has no excuse, really, except his utter lack of care for how people perceive his intelligence.

_If only Harry and Ron hadn't told her about Smith's crush,_ she thinks. _Then my head wouldn't be taken over by bloody boys _all _of the time!_

She has so much to do before the birth, but her thoughts have been possessed with Malfoy and Harry and stupid Goldstein and Smith. It's not like her to be so, so… Lavendar-ish.

She glares down at her stomach. Maybe it's at the heart of her thoughts—forcing her to be so unlike herself. Or maybe she caught girlishness like a virus. Either way, it's messing with her self-esteem. She has to keep reminding herself: _No one will want me for a very long time._

_Except,_ she thinks as Draco abandons his paperwork and comes to stand behind her, _in the physical sense. _Even the witches who perused _Witch Weekly_, once they got hold of the truth, would think Hermione would rather be under the covers with a wizard rather than walk down the aisle with one.

"Draco, don't do this," Hermione says as he lifts her hair off her neck and sweeps it to her other shoulder. He leans down even as she tries to shake him off. She stills as he continues, closing her eyes. His cold lips feel amazing against her skin, which feels aflame.

_I don't want this. I don't.  
><em>  
>"Just endeavoring to take your mind off current events," he says. He straightens and drops her hair back into place. "But if that's the way you feel…" He hesitates.<p>

_I don't.  
><em>  
>"I do," says Hermione curtly. She adjusts in her seat and resumes her paperwork. She is <em>not<em> Malfoy's plaything. She will not be defined by the men in her life, whether they have a claim to be there or not.

Malfoy sits down. She regrets it, but regret won't pay her medical bills.

A sharp pain dissects her head. Focusing on the words in front of her, she is able to dismiss the headache. She's not so fortunate to dismiss Malfoy out of her mind.

The hour continues in silence, and ends with it as well. She heads to the Great Hall, shaking off the anger and annoyance like a retriever shaking off pond water. She told Malfoy it had to stop—he never bloody believed her. It kind of hurts that he didn't take her seriously, just like the rest of the men in her life.

_Chin up._

Even her stupid inner voice sounds like the man.

Harry and Ron are having a late lunch before Quidditch practice. She smiles when she sees them, a seat empty beside Ron. When she starts to wonder why she is smiling, she realizes it is because they are back at Hogwarts. Back in their routine.

"Morning!" she says cheerfully as she takes her seat next to Ron. He mutters back a greeting before yawning. Hermione smirks at Harry's rather messy hair after he greets her before resuming his conversation with Neville.

She spreads out the _Daily Prophet_ before her as she butters a slice of toast. Hm… Kingsley was taking a beating about Greyback still being loose. It seemed the political holiday for the Acting Minister was over. The _Prophet_ included several reader letters about the situation, and citizens accused him of taking his time with the situation with everything from being a Death Eater himself to incompetence.

_As if Kingsley were a Death Eater,_ she thinks, shaking her head and turning the page quite forcefully. _The nerve!_

Hillfred & Dunst have an advertisement for their contraception potion on the back page of the Reader Letters column. Hermione reads it, and for the first time pays close attention. H&D had supplied her with _her _contraceptive—the only reason she had felt safe enough to go without a condom.

"You coming to practice?" Harry asks as he and Ron stand, along with the other members of the Quidditch team still at the table. She continues staring at the newspaper. "Hermione?"

She folds up the paper. "Yes, sorry. Just let me get more toast and I'll follow."

"Here," he says, and hands her a napkin holding three slices. He adjusts his glasses and shares a smirk with Ron.

Ron shakes his head at her. "You lose yourself in that bleeding rag."

"It pays to stay informed," she tells them as she slings her bookbag over her shoulder and they walk out of the Great Hall together.

"It pays to get one over on the Granger," Ron sings, and she can't help but laugh because he's so _very_ silly.

"Toast: the tool of the master manipulator." Harry slaps her shoulder and she laughs again. Scratch that, they are both too silly for their own good.

"You two are in a chipper mood," she says. "Too chipper."

"Oh, that's the drugs," Harry says, all serious as the exit the castle and make their way to the pitch. He raises his brows at her as she looks at him, mouth agape. "Those house elves are serious about improving morale around the place."

Ron guffaws and she shakes her head, smiling. _Boys._

They split off when they reach the changing rooms. Harry gives her another pat on the shoulder—and Hermione imagines he holds her gaze for a little too long to be normal—and she continues toward the pitch to sit in the stands. She opens the _Prophet _again and nibbles at her toast. Soon the Gryffindor team is on the field, flying circles and whatever else possesses them. Harry's voice giving orders is pleasant background noise as she continues the paper and then takes out parchment and quill to write her weekend letters.

McGonagall's conversation with her this morning reminds her to take a moment to tell her parents she is visiting on Monday afternoon and to ask if they will take the afternoon off to see her. Then she writes to the _Daily Prophet_—anonymously, since she doesn't want too much publicity when she is hiding such a large secret—about the Greyback affair and her disappointment in the _Prophet's_ fear mongering. In this case, it is unfair to promote distrust in the Ministry when she personally knows they are doing all they can to bring peace back into England. After that, she sends her regrets to the Light Day School since she owes them that, at the very least.

Then she writes Viktor. This letter makes her pause. She has known, vaguely, that Viktor would like to resume their relationship that had been cut off by the war and his home country's refusal to participate. However, the fact that he had stayed in Bulgaria, safe, while she fought had done damage to her perception of him. Besides, she had changed during the time when they couldn't write for fear of the owls being intercepted. She _has_ changed. She no longer takes his intention to resume their relationship seriously.

So she tells him. She doesn't skirt around the truth, and she doesn't name the father. It will be up to him to continue their relationship as _friends_ and not somewhat-more-than-friends.

She shakes out her hand when she is finished. She has a few more letters to write—inquiries, mostly, and to confirm her appointment at St. Mungo's on Monday morning—but it can wait until after lunch.

She watches Ron save a goal from Ginny. Ginny sticks her tongue out at her grinning brother, then stops and races away as Harry flies overhead. Whether it's from embarrassment at Harry having seen her act childish or fear of the Quidditch captain, Hermione doesn't know. Doesn't care to read into tiny acts such as that.

She smiles at the scene. She is tired of thinking about relationships. It is time to focus on herself. And, when she enters the changing rooms to relieve her bladder, the baby inside of her.

Tonight she will tell Ginny. She needs her best girl friend at her back.

At least, she'll tell her _after_ the party.


	7. Intermission: Staying at Hogwarts Party

Hermione didn't see it. How boys in their year looked at her. Like the bloody moon shone out of her hair. Ron blearily considered this around his Firewhiskey. Merlin's beard, sometimes _it did!_ Especially when the sun was just right and her hair was too tall it seemed to literally _be the sun._

Ron thought it had, once. The shining part, not the second life as a sun part. Then he got smart. If she didn't kill him for messing up their relationship, _Mum_would. Hermione was the best thing to happen to his grades.

Someone had brought a wireless and tuned into an old Weird Sisters concert. Ron nodded his head to the beat, slipping halfway down in his seat by the door. He yawned. Ginny, sitting with her legs under her beside him on the sofa, laughed at him. She reached over to clink their bottles together.

"You're such a sleepy drunk," she teased him. He batted her away.

"Who do you think it is?" Ron asked. This had been the prominent question in his mind the past week. Whose thick-headed arse did he have to pummel? He hoped it wasn't someone as annoying as Goldstein. Look at him now, talking Hermione to death about the such and such of such and blah. Ravenclaw was a twit. Always, "Well, as you know, Ron," and, "Have you noticed this such and such and by the way, is Hermione still single?"

Twit.

At least he knew it wasn't McLaggen.

Ginny waved her hand in front of his face. "What're talking about, Ron?"

"You're slurring," he told her. "My little sister. Slurring. This is not a good sign. You aren't going to go screw Seamus again, are you? Because you've really messed up the dormitory dynamics, and I'll have to kick his teeth in."

"Oh my god, will everyone just _get over it_? It was months ago! And I've paid enough! And _no_, I'm not! And how do you even know the word dynamics!"

Ron sorted this out. Slowly, taking many minutes.

"Good," he finally said.

Ginny sighed at him. "Ron, you're such a slush."

"Yeah, but what are you?"

She rolled her eyes.

Ron pondered. "It's good, really. Hermione staying. Means we can be there. You know." He waved his hand. Thinking about his friend being a _mum_, being tied down like that, being _adult,_ being all that was _tough._ If Snape wasn't fair, then this was… this was _really unfair._

"Of course Hermione's staying," Ginny said. "Why would she leave? Hogwarts is her life."

Oh, wait. Did Hermione tell Ginny? He squinted at his shoe trying to remember. Hey, his laces were untied! He should tie them. Uh, movement. That seemed hard.

Ginny peered into his bottle. "How many of these have you had?"

"Stop eyeing my drink, you're making it nervous. Hey, you're not going to do anything stupid like fall over 'arry, are you? Because I'll have to kick you out of the family."

Ginny shook her head and closed her eyes. "At least it's not my teeth."

"Forever shunned, Gin. I'm not kidding. _Shunned_."

She just sighed.

*

"Do you understand the difficulty of this venture?" Fred asked him.

"There could be... _death._"

"Mayhem."

"The dissolution of legal bonds."

"Eclipses of the moon."

"Lambs eating lions."

"That sort of thing."

Harry glanced from Fred to George and back. He'd lost his glasses somewhere, he thought after Neville tried to explain how wild Mandrakes populated leafy cities or something that didn't end very well, and now he couldn't even see the scars on Fred's face, which was nice. He didn't like to remember failure.

"We are talking about the same thing, right?" he asked, because you needed to be certain, with the twins.

George pulled away from the Exploding Snap castle. "I thought so. Isn't that right, Forge."

"That's right, Gred." Fred nodded enthusiastically, so hard Harry thought his neck would snap right off. He frowned. Ow.

"Wait," he said. "What are you two talking about again? What are we talking about? I just asked how your Wheezes were going."

"Oh," George said. "We thought you wanted to ask Michael Corner to dance."

"This changes things," Fred said darkly. "This changes things _dramatically_."

Harry scratched his head. Maybe he shouldn't have drunk that Firewhiskey. Hermione said it made him terribly confused and she didn't like it. She'd cautioned him against it as soon as he took a bottle from George, but she was no fun sometimes, he reasoned, and Harry would have a long, difficult road ahead as he supported her through her pregnancy, and since she couldn't drink anything but Butterbeer he would do it for her. It all seemed logical at the time. But he only had three or four shots, and it was—that wasn't fair at all. Would he _always_ be such a lightweight? Ron could drink eight. Eight!

"Say, Forge, I think our Harry has been drinking," George said.

"I think you're right, Gred. He looks a mite peaky. You don't think he'll puke up all our hard won Firewhiskey, do you? Because that would be a damn shame."

Their voices were getting further away. Harry squinted, only able to see blurry red spots where there hair was, and then that disappeared in a shock of electric green. Dean's costume, he remembered. Something about a lime. Or was it a lion? Bloody hell, he _was _drunk.

He bumbled forward and heard a scrape as he ran into the table and pushed it forward.

The realisation hit him like the lightning on his forehead. The Exploding Snap castle. And the twins always could get them really big before they exploded…

*

"What was that?" Draco asked as Millicent contained her yawn.

"Who _cares_? Helga's knickers, it's a Gryffindor fest in here. If I turn red and gold when I leave this room, Malfoy, I'm doing something unforgivable to your tie collection." She would, too. Malfoy dragging her to this party was one thing, but not even _recognizing _her grief over losing that elusive Head Girl badge…

Sod Draco.

"Stop whining." Draco peered over the heads of the crowd. "I heard a bang."

"Heard you left your brain in the dungeons," Millicent muttered. Draco wasn't the self-absorbed creature from their first year, the one who's every other word bruised her skin like old fruit, but he still wasn't the most considerate human being, or even the kindest Slytherin. That went to Blaise, who set aside her favourite cereal for her every morning.

Blaise… he hadn't been invited to the party. Actually, all of the prefects had been invited by Granger, but Draco gave Blaise a _look_. It was a look Draco would give the speck on a tick on a crup's back. Blaise had opted to take the night patrol, instead.

For what was once a tightknit group, the war had divided them forever.

Millicent didn't especially like this development. She definitely did not like it since Blaise had declared his intent not to go _after _Millicent agreed to go. It was one thing to befriend Draco during the war when they were one of a few Slytherins involved on the winning side, but to stick to his side like a wolf on the moon was asking too much. Mother had asked him to look after Draco. Millicent was. But there was a limit.

"This crowd," Draco said as he dropped flat with an expression of deep disgust, like someone had spat on his shoe. "I didn't know Granger had this many friends."

Raising her voice as the Weird Sisters got to the chorus and those who knew the words started chanting them, she leaned toward Malfoy and yelled, "Can we tell Granger bye and go now?"

"Can't!" He rolled his eyes and explained when Millicent only stared. "Can't find her in this melee!"

So that was whom he'd been searching for. Well. Maybe they were in accord and he wanted to leave, or maybe he was acting the good party guest, or maybe… Hm.

Millicent's mind twisted through familiar and unfamiliar paths. Draco was often a part of her speculation, just because his moods were dangerous to the whole House and, since his Head Boy appointment, to the whole student population. Draco's _social life_ usually wasn't part of her ponderings. But, now… hm. This was interesting. Even if it was nothing, it was interesting.

Didn't Daddy precious want a pureblood marriage for him? She knew he'd been mulling over a letter all week. She assumed from the eagle owl it arrived by that it was Lucius, attempting to yet again insert his slimy self into his son's life. Millicent had been tempted to ask Draco if she could send a cursed letter back—but that was dangerous. Lucius was still a Death Eater, and her death would be easy for him to accomplish. Petty childish revenge would incite his need to prove himself the better wizard.

Maybe Draco was using his father's impetuous and unsolicited advice to look into favourable matches from his peers. Yes, that seemed plausible. Granger, despite herself, would be a favourable choice to any ex-Death Eater trying to prove he was as unlike his father as one could be.

She yawned again.

"Well, I'm going," she decided. She could shove and push as well as anybody, and it would be a fun sport in this Gryffindor crowd. She glanced at Draco to see if he was following and he waved her on.

"Go on, then! I'll be down later."

Hm.

*

Zacharias was bored. Very bored. By the door, he watched enviously as Bulstrode shoved ickle second years out of her way then exited the crowded room. Bulstrode was an okay sort—her mother was shameful in her need to draw blood—but Zacharias could talk to Bulstrode during patrols. She wasn't as intelligent as him, naturally, but she had a pureblood mind and her training had served her well in the social graces. Zacharias could even overlook her being a Slytherin.

Hannah was dancing with Ernie. The match didn't surprise him. Neither did the jealousy he saw coming from Justin Finch-Fletchley by the drinks table. Ernie was blind to miss the attraction his best friend had for him. Idiots, the both of them. If he was in love—as Justin professed to Zacharias he was—Zacharias wouldn't be moping and just _hoping _Ernie would look his way. He would follow in his mascots footsteps and stubbornly refuse to leave his beloved's eyesight until the person saw him.

Which was why he envied Bulstrode's ability to leave. Zacharias still had unfinished business with Granger, though the witch decidedly refused to see it. Ordinarily, this would aggravate him and make him mark her as unintelligent and not worth his effort, but he understood Granger. Likeable as she was, she held deep insecurities about her abilities to attract the opposite sex. It came from being part of the Trio, where any other male presence was intolerable. This not only undermined Granger's self-esteem, it also caused most men to walk away. Idiots.

Zacharias was made of sterner stuff.

Friendships—for that was all they were, no matter what people had to say about Harry and Hermione—were easily overcome. Zacharias had plenty of female friends that would have no problem with Hermione stepping between them. Harry and Ron would just have to shove that overprotective attitude.

Granger was currently being assaulted by Anthony Goldstein's presence. Zacharias sniffed. The man couldn't tell you the time without giving an essay. Granger seemed to think along the same lines, because she shook him off quickly and started talking to the next group of people in the room. A proper hostess, Zacharias thought. Instead of ignoring the large group of people who had shown up for her not-going away party, Hermione made sure to talk to each of them at least once before the night was over. She had begun in the far corner and moved counter-clockwise through the crowd. She would stop to see Zacharias soon.

That was why Zacharias waited. Why make the effort to mingle when it could potentially lose him the chance to speak to Granger individually?

Badgers are nothing if not ingenious.

Keeping a lookout for her out of the corner of his eye, Zacharias people watched. Justin was still mooning over Ernie. Potter, previously tipsy, was now quite drunk because of the Weasley twins. They had most likely entered the castle through The Hog's Head, which wasn't very original. Malfoy was watching Potter gesticulate to Longbottom about something—every so often his gaze would dart to Granger. Malfoy was pureblood raised, but the man's feelings were obvious to anyone who _cared _to look. Granger knew, after all, but from their interactions before and after meetings and other times Zacharias had witnessed them alone together, Granger was keeping up appearances until she could run away screaming from _that _hot mess. He didn't blame Granger. Trouble between her and Malfoy could damage the reputation of their positions.

Zacharias shook his head and moved on. Potter and Weasley would strangle Granger before they let anything form between those two.

Granger was now talking to Ginny, who was still trying to garner Potter's attention. Meanwhile, nearby Seamus Finnegan sat in almost the same position as Zacharias. The only difference being that Finnegan had had a night with Ginny, which meant presumably Ginny knew of his fancying her. Most likely Ginny was just angling for the better wizard—there was no doubt it was Potter—and Finnegan would move on.

He straightened as Granger wrapped up her conversation with Ginny. His slacks had a faint crease where they were bunched when he leaned against the wall. He frowned.

"Granger," he said when she approached him. He nodded behind her to where Goldstein looked on, nervously adjusting the collar of his shirt. "Your fanclub looks rather eager tonight."

Hermione grimaced, but didn't dare look round. She gave a forced grin. "So. Enjoying yourself, Smith?"

"Immensely," he said, pulling his eyes away from her to gesture at the crowd. "My Housemates are making fools of themselves with the copious amounts of alcohol. I'll have blackmail material for ages."

He smiled, and felt pleased when she laughed.

"No worse than my House," Hermione said, and Zacharias was even more pleased when she turned her back to the wall beside him. She swept her hair out of her face and eyed the crowd shrewdly. "I didn't know it would be a party _quite _this large or this..."

"Loud? Obnoxious? I could list other adjectives, but they carry the same theme."

"Exhausting," Hermione said. She glanced up at him—he was almost a head taller—and smiled wearily. "I'd rather be in my bed, curled up next to my cat."

"Would you like an escort to Gryffindor? I promise to cover my ears when you speak the password." Though he knew her character wouldn't allow her to leave her guests early, he hoped she would want to leave. Either way, he appeared the gentleman he was, but he would fancy a minute or two of alone time with her.

She shook her head and then looked down. Confusion entered her voice. "Are those your shoelaces?"

Zacharias sucked his teeth. _Damn._ But at least the truth would make him look good, even if the yellow and black polka dot shoelaces did not.

"Luna," he said. "She gave them to me for my eighteenth birthday two weeks ago. I assumed Ginny would be here—"

"—and she would report it back to Luna that you wore them," Hermione finished. He nodded and admired the way she admired him. "That's either very sweet or very sneaky. I can't decide which."

"Sweet," Zacharias said. "After all, true deception would require me to not tell you any of this."

"Actually," she said, turning toward him, "sweet would require sincerity, which most often means silence on the matter, and you could be telling me this so that I would see two of your traits."

Zacharias faced her as well, mimicking her stance against the wall. Only his Butterbeer and three inches were between them. He raised his eyebrows at her triumphant expression. "If that were to be the case, which it's not, then honesty would be the uppermost trait of mine in your mind if you walked away just now."

She rolled her eyes, then her gaze lingered on his face. Zacharias had never understood how long her eyelashes were, or how pink the tops of her cheeks became when she was excited, or just how soft her hair seemed when one looked past the mass of curls to see the whole.

He admired her, and watched her eyes see him admiring her.

She broke the gaze and cleared her throat. "Um. H-Have you talked to Luna lately?"

"Not recently," he said, allowing the interruption. After all, he didn't want to be overbearing like Goldstein or far too distant like Malfoy. Zacharias knew that, unlike those two wizards, he actually stood a chance with Granger.

"Have you?"

"Actually, yes," Hermione said. "Ginny passed on a letter from her just yesterday. She seems to be rather bored, although those are Ginny's words. She's much better at reading Luna than I am."

"Poor girl," he said. "She's probably going more spare stuck with that batty father of hers."

She frowned at him. "I wouldn't call him _batty_."

He raised an eyebrow. "My mother does, and she is far more honest than I am. Apparently he interrupted a meeting of the Wizengamot to discuss creatures made of wind that the Minister had in his secret army."

"Oh, _those_," she said darkly. She turned her head away while muttering something just out of his range of hearing.

"It is unfortunate for Luna, of course," Zacharias said, looking out at the crowd again. It wasn't from fear, naturally. Smiths were not afraid, only cautious. "Especially with what's happening in January."

"Oh? I haven't heard anything."

"They're planning a celebration festival in Hogsmeade." Zacharias glanced at her, only to find her wearing the oddest expression of unease. He adjusted his shirt, using it as an excuse to look away. He licked his lips. Opened his mouth…

"They haven't announced it yet. The Wizengamot only ruled on it last weekend."

Damn him. Damn it to hell and back.

He clenched his teeth together. _Smith, man up!_

"Listen, Granger," he began. "Hermione. I…" He closed his mouth, opened it. He looked like a gaping fish and he could have slit his own throat easily. Hermione's forehead was creased, but pity was slowly overcoming the confusion on her face.

"Go out with me," he said, before cautiousness overruled the moment. He knew these words, had prepared them for such a moment. He threw his heart out there, and continued, "Hogsmeade weekend is in two weeks. I would like to enjoy your company then."

The pity had cleared from her expression. Interest was stirring, or some other feeling that placed a bright flush on her cheeks. She bit her lip.

"Think about it," Zacharias said. He nodded out to the crowd. "You should go say hello to the rest of the guests. I didn't mean to keep you so long."

Babbling, he thought, stop babbling! If only _she _would stop nibbling her lip. He liked her lip. He didn't want her to terrorize it.

Maybe he shouldn't have asked. Maybe it was the wrong time. Maybe he should just go jump in the lake. It _was_ rather silly of him, but she, with her intelligence and her lips and her long hair and her hand always in the air during lessons, inspired that sort of thing.

Hermione's eyebrows crinkled. She released her lip. "Do you want to da…" Her words drew off as she looked at something to the side of Zacharias. Had it been dance? _Date?_

Zacharias gained control of his surprise and turned.

"Oh _no,_" Hermione said, rushing away. Potter had finally caused the commotion of the night, and Malfoy was there to hold up the wizard as he tried to become a Potter puddle.

"Harry!" cried Hermione when she reached the men. Zacharias followed, narrowing his eyes as he noticed the split lip. He glanced around the room. The foursome had several people's interest, but there were two people in particular…

"The twins," Zacharias said, catching Hermione's attention. She straightened from tending Potter and gazed in the direction he was staring. A nasty frown formed on her face.

"If they weren't expelled already—"

"I'll take care of them," Zacharias stated. He nodded to Malfoy, still holding up a giggling Potter. Malfoy glanced quickly between him and Hermione and sneered back. Zacharias merely raised his eyebrows. The puerile git should know better than to intimidate a Smith.

"Hermione," he said, grabbing her wrist before she could turn back to Potter. Her eyes, worried, confirmed his theory that she would be too wrapped up in Potter to remember what happened between them. He remedied that situation. He swept his thumb over the soft skin of her wrist. Her eyes then…he would still be thinking of them at breakfast.

"Think about what I said," he murmured quietly. She leaned closer, imperceptibly or imagined in his eager mind, and he dropped her wrist and stepped back. He wasn't one to take advantage, except in Quidditch.

He left then, and allowed his annoyance to come to head as he aimed straight for the Weasley twins. If only whatever they had done to Potter happened ten minutes later…

Idiots.

*

"C'mon, Potter," Draco murmured as they eased out into the corridor. Granger closed the door behind them, which shut out the boisterous sounds of the party. He waited as she took Potter's other arm. Potter slung it around her waist far too enthusiastically.

Potter laughed. "Just like old times, eh?"

Shaking his head, he glanced over to see Granger doing the same. "Come on, you big lug," she said wearily.

"It is rather like deja vu, Potter," Draco said as they began toward the tower. "I remember telling you the last time this happened that I wouldn't carry your sorry arse home again."

"Yes, but you're a prat," Potter replied, trying to adjust his glasses but only succeeding in thumping Granger in the head. "Whoops! Sorry!"

Grimacing, she shook her head. "Let's just get to the tower. _Without _speaking, please. All we need is to get caught."

They walked on. Potter wasn't so bad off he needed to be carried. The Jelly Legs Jinx Corner cast on him had dissipated with a general counter-spell. When Potter began pulling away from him, Draco allowed it with an eye roll when he noticed he kept his arm around Granger still. Always a touchy drunk, Draco wondered why he had never realized Potter preferred Granger holding him up above anyone else.

"Pretty smart, Potter," Draco said as they waited for the staircase to settle at the next floor.

Potter raised his head off Granger's shoulder—nuzzling, right out here in the open—and raised his brows at Draco, focusing on his nose. "Oh. What?"

"Distracting Granger from whatever tripe Smith was telling her." Seeing Granger frown, not looking at him, he smirked. Potter frowned as well.

"Smith? What's up with Smith?"

"I've got this from here, Malfoy," Granger said as they reached the top of the stairs. Potter turned his frown on her. "You should go before Mrs. Norris finds you."

Draco let up on her. "Fine," he said, and cast the Feather Light Charm on Potter. No use letting Granger suffer because Potter wanted to smother her with affection. "I'll keep my trap shut. No bothering the wonder couple."

"Malfoy, let it go." She hissed the words so fast it sounded like Parseltongue.

"_I'd _like to know what you two—" Potter burped, and then grimaced. "Ugh."

"So eloquent, Potter."

They reached the Fat Lady's portrait in silence. She took one look at the trio, saw Malfoy, and giggled.

"Devil's snare," Granger said promptly. Even with the lightening spell, she still had to use two hands and all her strength to help him into the common room. Draco stood back and watched, admiringly, as she leant over the hole to check if Potter had landed without injury.

She turned back to him, pushing her hair out of her face with one hand. "Thanks."

He stepped forward and glanced down at Potter. Potter groaned. "You don't want help getting him to bed?"

"No. Thank you." Lips pressed tightly together like that, she reminded him of McGonagall. He raised a brow.

"And you? Do you need help into bed?"

The Fat Lady giggled again.

Glaring, she said, "Have a good night, Malfoy." Her eyes darted to Potter's face, but Potter was too busy trying to arrange his limbs in order to stand.

Draco raised his hands. "Not a problem, Granger."

He walked away, leaving her to scramble into the portrait hole after Potter.

Not a _fucking _problem.

*

"Harry, _no,_" Hermione whispered, glancing at the common room for people staying up late. She underestimated the draw of the party, though. Any sane Gryffindor would be in the Room of Requirement, not sneaking in the empty tower.

The walk had sobered him. A little. His lip didn't hurt as much after Hermione performed _Episkey_ on it. Then Hermione had moved closer, almost chest-to-chest, and softly touched his bottom lip to look for injuries.

He couldn't help that her eyes were as brown as fawn hair or the tops of her breasts, so inviting and warm, were peeking out of her shirt. He couldn't help that a different part of his anatomy remembered how her nipples felt in his mouth and how she liked to curl her toes when she moaned.

Harry remembered a lot about that night, though the _sane_ part didn't want to admit it.

The insane part of him kissed Hermione. The insane part of him didn't care about Hermione's fear of getting caught.

Hell, maybe he _was_ too drunk.

"Harry," Hermione said, eying him warily. "Harry, we talked about this…"

"_You_ talked about it," Harry said and—screw it—reached to touch her hip. She slapped his hand away. He frowned at her. She frowned back.

"You and Ginny—"

Harry pulled away. The back of his knee hit a coffee table and he struggled to stay standing. "Are nothing," he said, folding his arms. He knew his voice sounded pissy, but he didn't care. Whatever buzz he had was rapidly disappearing. "Which I've told you."

Hermione groaned and yanked at a chunk of her hair.

"I don't want to talk about this, Harry—"

"Hermione."

She opened her mouth, saw his expression, and drew back, her face closing off. He clenched his teeth, but that made a sharp lightning bolt of pain spear through his head. Honestly, she could be _so _thickheaded when she made the effort.

"I don't want to be with Ginny. I don't know how many times I've had to tell you—"

She began shaking her head. "No, no, I _know_ that you two—"

"You know what _you_ want to happen," Harry said, cutting her off. "You think you know what's best? It's _not_ Ginny."

She stilled. Her eyes shuttered, she took another step back. "Mistakes happen, Harry. You know that as well as me. Ginny – she's to blame, yes, but can you really blame her when"—she reddened and lowered her voice—"what we did was just as bad?"

Harry straightened and stepped closer to her. She quickly stepped back, but stopped when she fell back onto the couch. Like a fawn seeing a hunter for the first time, she looked up at him. Confused, wary, but still trusting. Sighing, he sat down on the coffee table; ignored the severe look Hermione gave him at the action. Sod the rules for one damn minute.

Before she could speak, he said, "She broke my heart, Hermione."

Her fingers twisting in her lap, she whispered, "But it would break hers if she found out."

"Even Ron agrees that she deserves it," Harry said. Eyes flashing with shock, her mouth opened. "And no, I didn't tell him about us. But he agrees that she deserves the cold shoulder and it's _my _decision to get back with her, not yours."

"She's my friend, though," Hermione said, and her face so miserable Harry winced. Yep. Totally and completely sober now. Too easy to get drunk. Too easy to sober up, too.

Hermione continued. "What we did wasn't right. And I can't hurt her like that again."

"You're trying to make up for it with _my _life." Harry leaned forward and touched her knee. "We were drunk. And I'm sorry for tonight," he added, though he wasn't sorry for the reason Hermione would think. He leaned forward, peering into her eyes. "You wouldn't happen to have a Pepper-Up Potion, would you?"

She laughed, shaking her head.

They were best friends. As Hermione led him to the Head Girl room for a potion to sober him up, Harry knew that to wonder about something more—to _lust _about something more—would be monumentally stupid. Hermione was the smartest person he knew. If she had wanted to take him up on his many—_many—_hints, she would have already.

They were best friends.


	8. Outside Hogwarts

"Wow," Mrs. Granger says. Her eyes stare blankly at Hermione. "Wow."

"I know," Hermione whispers. "Um… I'll go get you a glass of water."

"Yes, dear." Mrs. Granger stares even after Hermione rose from the loveseat, took to the kitchen for a glass of ice water, and returned. Hermione resumes her seat. Mrs. Granger drinks her water.

"Well," she says as the glass _tings _against the glass coffee table. "I—I didn't expect this."

"Me either. I was on a contraceptive potion. The one you pointed out to me from the _Daily Prophet_."

Mrs. Granger's gaze becomes confused. "Hm. _Oh._" She reached out for the water. "And it didn't take?"

"I suppose not. I'm going to investigate it after my doctor's appointment this afternoon."

Mrs. Granger stares at Hermione, deep thought wrinkling her forehead. Hermione glances toward the armchair where her father used to sit—where he would be sitting now, if he hadn't died during the War. Brain aneurism. One second he was complaining of pressure in both his ears. The next…

"Well, you'll move in, won't you?" Standing up, Mrs. Granger takes to the staircase. Hermione follows, her hand trailing over the teak bannister. Mrs. Granger speaks over her shoulder. "You could be the new front desk girl at the office!"

"Um—"

"Jen is getting married in a fortnight, and I could hire a temp until you finish your schooling—oh, but you'll be getting _married_!" Stopping on the landing, Mrs. Granger turns and claps her hands together. Her eyes gleam at Hermione. "Oh, _who_ is the lucky man?"

Hermione inherited most of her features from her father. However, she does share one trait with her mother: an inability, when anxious, of thinking before speaking.

"I can't say. He… doesn't want to be involved."

Better to hurt her mother's feelings than admit the awful truth.

"That's terrible!" Mrs. Granger put a hand to her chest. "How can he do such a thing? Awful, awful man!"

She pulls Hermione into a hug. While patting her hair, she says, "You just tell me who it is and I'll tell your father's solicitor—"

"No." Hermione pulls away, but keeps her hands on her mother's shoulders. She smiles—surprisingly, it isn't strained. "No, Mom. I don't want him involved either."

"Is he one of those"—Mrs. Granger's voice lowers as if it is an obscene word—"_celebrity leeches_? I've been reading that _Witch Weekly_ column and Felicia Dishington says that leeches will be all over you and your friends because of what you did during the… you know."

"No matter. It's better this way."

"I _suppose_."

Hermione swallows and looks away from her mother's confused, but loving gaze. "What did you bring me up here for?"

"Well, we will have to change your old room about, won't we?" Mrs. Granger leads her into Hermione's bedroom. Very little has changed since Hermione's eleventh birthday. Her parents were never big on decorating, so the walls were a plain white, her bedcovers white, and her chair in the corner a neutral brown. The only true color in the room came from the spines of her books in her bookcases.

"Arrange all this around a crib," Mrs. Granger continues. "Or we could get one of those bed extensions where the baby lays on a little mattress connected to your big mattress. Oh, what are those called?"

"Well, before you start rearranging the bedroom, remember that I may stay in the wizarding world." Hermione sits on the end of her bed and bounces slightly. "And I will be able to find a job at the Ministry. I've already had several offers; one from Egypt, even—"

"But don't you want to be home? Without a husband, you'll need help to raise the child, and there's no one else in the family."

"I—" Hermione opens her mouth to say '_I_ _am home in the wizarding world.'_ But one look at her mother's disappointed gaze leaves her speechless.

_I haven't been home in eight years._ Oh, she has been home for summers—sometimes—and for Christmas—sometimes—but she has never _stayed_.

That seems to be what Mrs. Granger wants.

"Go ahead and arrange it however you like," Hermione says, standing. She is tired of this house and her mom, all of a sudden. "But maybe we should just look for a three-bedroom house instead." She glances at her watch for a reprieve but there is plenty of time before her appointment at St. Mungo's.

"I have to go, Mom. My appointment, you know."

"Oh, let me get my coat!" Mrs. Granger throws her hands in the air and turns to hurry downstairs. Hermione catches her on the landing.

"Mom, _no._" Mrs. Granger's mouth opens slightly, but she forestalls the rebuttal. "It would be too suspicious. I must hide my… condition as much as possible or—"

"Reporters," Mrs. Granger says significantly. Her eyes narrow. "Oh, let me get my hands on one of them—"

"Exactly," Hermione says, eying her mother nervously. "In the meantime, we shouldn't do anything suspicious, and you coming with me to St. Mungo's will stir all sorts of rumours. No, it will be better to go by myself."

"If you're _sure,_" Mrs. Granger says. She lifts her hand to Hermione's cheek. Hermione wants to relax in it, let her mother parent her—but Hermione has been essentially living as an adult for eight years. She can't be a child now.

She says goodbye and leaves. Mrs. Granger closes the door behind her and Hermione's elation that her mother still loves her and accepts her, when it comes, is… rather muted.

*

Once she arrives at the abandoned department store, she barely glances at the sign on the door—'Closed for Refurbishment'—and instead she looks up at the sign above the abandoned, dusty display window. Purge and Dowse, Ltd. It gives her a moment to collect herself where her quick walk through the streets of London had not. She uses her jacket cuff to wipe her face. She shouldn't be crying. Things had went rather well, after all.

The dummy is expectant when she finally gives it her attention. She checks for watching Muggles before whispering, "St. Mungo's, please." She can't quite remember what was said the last time she came, with Mrs. Weasley and the rest of the Weasleys when Mr. Weasley was attacked. The name of the hospital should be enough, shouldn't it?

She takes a deep breath as the store dummy nods. She checks one more time for witnesses, and then she walks through the glass and into St. Mungo's proper.

The noise and commotion hits her like stepping from a freezer into volcanic heat. Jarring. Hermione sets her feet so she isn't blown back.

The noise is like this: loud squawks from the bright yellow human-sized rubber chicken in the corner; a man sitting in one of the rickety chairs by the walls is singing a Celestina Warbeck song at the top of his voice, his face red and veins in his neck jumping out; a woman in the seat beside him she thinks is his wife squirts water into his mouth from a plastic water bottle when he hits the high notes. It seems this has been happening for a while. As she listens, he goes into the Best Of album. A little girl in the seat opposite is groaning in horrendous pain—her face _did_ stick that way. There are various other noises coming from the queue in front of the Welcome Witch, but the star of the show is the man with the ass's head.

There are few normal looking people, in line and reading copies of _Witch Weekly_ in their chairs. Hermione wonders what freakish ailments they're hiding under their clothes.

She joins the end of the queue to the front desk and hopes her scarf and hat will protect her from stares. She had expected to change her appearance after she finished with her mom but had forgotten. Nervous, she checks to make sure her hair is tucked in.

Maybe she _should_ have asked if there was a more private way into her appointment with a women's health specialist. Harry's advice is sounding more rational by the minute, and not at all an abuse of her celebrity. Dropping her head as a wizard wearing the green healer robes catches her eyes and frowns in thought, Hermione loses a little more of her grip on her anxiety. This couldn't be the _only_ entrance. That would be a major fire hazard.

"Miss? Miss?"

The healer. She hunches her shoulders, turning her head away—but there's people looking at her now. The girl with the bug eyes over her distorted face makes_unh! unh!_ noises as she tries to attract her mum's attention. Hermione quickly turns toward the healer and pitches her voice low.

"Yes?"

His eyes widening, the healer takes a step back in surprise. His hand comes up and then drops. Hermione swallows as he stutters. The man ahead of her in the queue shifts restlessly, glancing back at them.

"M-Miss,—"

_Please don't say my name, please don't say my name—_

"Ackerly!" The shout comes from the doorway behind the Welcome Witch. A commanding witch fills the doorway, her disgusted frown combating with her pale green St. Mungo's robes for dominance.

The healer beside her flinches, hunching close to his clipboard. "Y-yes, Healer B-B-Bones?"

It sounds like a general affliction, not one just for her. She shakes her head at herself. Dear Merlin, she's getting as pompous as Gilderoy Lockhart!

"Where's my ten o'clock? She's signed in," Healer Bones demands of poor Ackerly as she shakes a sheaf of parchment at him. Ackerly, sweating, holds up his clipboard like a defense and frantically searches the pages. All but the first in the queue appear transfixed by this waiting room drama. Bones isn't impressed with Ackerly's display and looks at Hermione with beady eyes. She reminds Hermione of those pigeons her and her dad used to feed at the park; all greed, sharp beaks, and feathery anger.

"You there. Girl. Ten o'clock with Healer Bones, yes?"

Girl. It is better than Hermione, she supposes, in this climate.

"Yes," she says, stepping forward. "Can I—?"

"Yes," said Healer Bones. "And, you, Ackerly, make sure there are no _other _people with appointments you've missed." As she holds the door for Hermione and Hermione passes her by, she mutters, "A _sign_ would do his job just as well, but _no_."

Maybe St. Mungo's is a little like living in the girls' dorms after all.

Biting her lip to keep silent, Hermione follows Healer Bones into the lift. The first thing she notes is the charred mark on the wall. Bones sees her eyebrows rise, because she says, "I think that was a Yaxley."

Hermione doesn't scoot away from the mark, but she does stare at it until the lift opens again and she gladly exits to the Women's Health floor.

"So," Bones says as they pass the check-in desk and she nods to the witch behind it, "what ails you, Miss Granger?"

"Um." Hermione glances behind her to see the check-in witch watching after them avidly. She blushes when Hermione sees her, and quickly busies herself. Hermione faces forward, pink. "Are you my healer?" she asks Bones.

"I am," Bones says. "I'm also the director of this floor, if that catches your fancy."

Okay. So Bones sounds competent and not used to reminding people of her competency. She remembers Amelia Bones had been killed in her sixth year by Voldemort himself—Susan had been distraught over it, quite rightly. The Bones family has always been respected and well known in the magical world. And the number one family, except the Weasleys and Harry, that Voldemort went after.

And Lucius Malfoy killed both of Molly Weasley's brothers in the first war.

She shakes her head, but her stomach roils at the memory of her finding that out. She focuses on the present. The healer leads her to a room and shuts the door behind them for privacy.

"Now," Bones says, motioning toward the chair in the center of the small room. Hermione has only a little difficulty getting into it because of her shoulder bag, but she does. Bones' face stays impassive throughout it, thankfully. Her hair is bright white, like all the colour has been frowned away. "Now, what's your problem today?"

She inhales. It shouldn't be so hard after she's told Harry and Ron, not to mention Malfoy—

"Miss Granger?"

"I'm pregnant," Hermione says. She goes on before Bones can speak. "Yes, I am certain. Madam Pomfrey did the test. No, I don't need a paternity test. I do need an oath from you or whichever healer you assign to me to keep this private."

"We take an oath when we enter St. Mungo's to respect our patient's privacy," Bones says. The impassivity is gone, replaced by solemn amusement. "I wasn't going to suggest a paternity test. Is there a reason why _you_ felt the need to suggest it?"

Oh. Because everyone in her life lately has been so _obsessed_ with the minor detail?

"Well," Healer Bones says after a moment of tense silence. "Shall we get to the diagnostic?"

"Please."

Hermione stares at Healer Bones' bone and wand badge on her robes as she begins the diagnostic. The spell Madam Pomfrey performed had been silent, and Hermione hadn't noticed a thing different about it than the other spells she used on sick students. The spell Healer Bones uses is different. Hermione can feel it seeking inside her, like a warm, gloved hand. Uncomfortable is not a strong enough word for it.

Bizarre is close.

She closes her eyes, trying not to make a face, and is relieved when the feeling stops. Now her stomach itches, but it's not anywhere she could scratch.

Maybe she _should_ have gone to a Muggle doctor. She knows that magical healing is different, but to know it is one thing, to _feel_ it is another bucket of wands.

She rotates her shoulders as the spell pulls away entirely, trying to shake off the last remnants like shaking off a spider web from her fingers. Healer Bones washes a bendable sheet of plastic in the sink by the door. The colours of the plastic move and bend underneath the bubbles. Healer Bones turns the tap off and dries the plastic with her wand. She holds the sheet over her wand and looks at it lit from beneath. The colours are all reds and blues; Hermione takes back her desire for Muggle doctors. What _is_ that?

"Do you want to know the sex?" Healer Bones asks, one white eyebrow rising as she continues looking at the sheet. Hermione guesses it is a diagnostic readout.

"It's only the tenth week. Can I?"

Amusement tugs at her lips. "I wouldn't have asked otherwise, Miss Granger."

"Well..." She swallows. This is too much. She should have had time. She is _supposed_ to have time. She can't decide this on her own. She thought she would be able to have a handle on things by the time she had to see the baby as something other than an _it _in her stomach, but this is too soon, far too soon.

"Yes, please," she says, and the pain in her stomach is not from the diagnostic.

"Girls," Healer Bones says and hands Hermione the readout. The colours haven't changed, but they do move with grace, like dancing. This is her child, these shifting colours. Bones watches as she stares at the sheet. "They'll give you some trouble in the fourth month, so we'll schedule another appointment for then."

"You can tell all that from this? Can you tell when it—_she_—will be born?" What else do these colours mean?

"_They._ And it's a little early for that," she answers. "Now, I'll give you some caffeine to perk you up. The diagnostic takes a lot from you."

"Wait. _They?_"

"Two," Healer Bones says.

"Are you quite sure? Can you check the readout again?"

"It's right, ma'am," she says, and her tone is sharper. "Twins are very distinct. Let me go make that cuppa."

Now that she thinks about it, she does feel a little run down. She thought it was just because of her baby—Merlin, babies, her daughters, she's having daughters, two little girls—but perhaps it is more than the realisation of her future motherhood.

Bones leaves. She tells herself to hold onto this realisation, to remember it two weeks and two months from now. She will be a mother...

She will not only have a child, but _children_.

Healer Bones comes back with a cuppa within five minutes. She leaves it on the counter and excuses herself as Hermione pulls herself back together. When she comes back in, Hermione's face is dry but red and she's blowing on the hot tea.

"Now," Bones says after she's closed the door. "We should talk about options for your second trimester."

Hermione's voice is faint. Her head is faint. Girls, not just a baby, _it_, but girls. She swallows and says, "What kind?"

"The report shows some signs of abnormal activity then." She studies Hermione with a critical eye, before saying, "Now, don't get worried, but there is a possibility of miscarriage."

"I thought the first month was the indicator?" Hermione tries to remember where she got that information, but her head is too light and the memory too vague. Miscarriage?

"The possibility goes down," Healer Bones says, "but doesn't disappear. We're seeing this a lot lately in the pregnancy boom this month, possibilities of trouble in the second trimester. Most of my colleagues believe it's a dietary problem. Not a lot of nutrition during the time of conception."

This doesn't happen for Muggles, does it? Merlin, who knows, maybe it does. She needs a book of Muggle obstetrics compared to Magical obstetrics. Would Hogwarts have that? Maybe Arthur could help.

"Miss Granger?"

"I apologise." She sets her cup to the side and rubs her eyes. "Do _you_ believe nutrition is the case?"

"It does have some significance in a magical birth." Bones leans against the counter and still has those critical eyes as she watches Hermione watch her back. "I believe it's stress, though. You still have nightmares of the war?"

She snorts. "It hasn't been a year; I would be dead if I didn't."

"True," she says without rancor. "That's _my_ estimate of it, though. Lots of nightmares going around, lots of death and rebuilding, not enough hope."

"What happened in the lift?" Hermione asks. "Sorry," she adds when Healer Bones's face shuts down. "I just...was curious."

"During the takeover," Bones answers finally. "Yaxley played too rough with a patient. Both got burned."

The takeover. She had honestly forgotten about it until she had seen the lift. Embarrassment rises on her cheeks. Too much pain and suffering during the war has made her unbelievably casual in regards to places other than Hogwarts and Grimmauld Place. She can make the effort now, though.

She tries. "Was it very hard?"

Grim amusement enters her voice. "We weren't as lucky as Hogwarts. Healers heal, not fight Death Eaters and Dementors. Why, not barely half a dozen fought." The amusement disappears, back to heaviness as she pinches her lips together like Professor McGonagall in a fit of rage. "They should have stuck to healing."

Hard, then, she answers herself. Hermione, if asked to describe the months at Hogwarts during the war, would never have called it and the people stuck there _lucky. _Sure, most had survived, thanks to house-elf guarded Floos that only connected to Grimmauld Place. But Hogwarts had been taken, and retaken, almost three times. People died when Hogwarts was occupied by the Death Eaters. They died protecting it. They died running away. The third time they came back, Voldemort only lost control of the battle for Hogwarts when he died. His death was the _only_ reason they won the castle back.

That doesn't lessen the pain St. Mungo's and Healer Bones has went through, however.

"I'm sorry," Hermione says. "I shouldn't have pried."

"Pry all you like," Bones says. "You saved us. You and your friends. St. Mungo's would be all rubble if the Order hadn't distracted them off us."

Probably one of many of Dumbledore's schemes. There had been so many, Hermione would need a flowchart to count them all. St. Mungo's may have well been one of them. Either way, she doesn't blame him for the days of devastation, not like the _Prophet_ does (at least in between the lines, not outright slander; they can't ridicule one of the saviors of wizardkind in _public_ after all.) She blames Voldemort.

She decides enough is enough.

"Is there anything I should do to reduce the risks of miscarriage?"

"Have a healthy pregnancy," Healer Bones says. When Hermione huffs, she smiles and says, "I'll give you a reading list and a coupon for Flourish and Blott's. Is the father waiting for you?"

"Is this the end of the examination?"

Healer Bones stares at her for a moment. Then, obviously making her mind up to something, pushes away from the counter. "It is. Let me get that list."

Hermione still has the diagnostic sheet in her hand. It dances underneath her gaze.

_Them._ Not an _it_.

*

Fred and George are happy, but surprised to see her in their shop in the middle of a school day. Hermione sits down gladly. The Apparition had taken its toll on her. Hermione notices it only because Madam Bones spoke of the twins giving her trouble, she is sure of it.

Trouble, she thinks as she looks at the twins, definitely comes not in ones, but twos.

"So," Fred says, and the skin where his eyebrows would be rose in a delighted waggle. "Mum told us the good news!"

"Oh." She sighs. She shouldn't have expected it to stay with Bill and Mrs. Weasley. The witch was a baby fanatic, as Ron put it. Poor Andromeda Tonks learned that the hard way when Mrs. Weasley showed up with a month's worth of meals and a large stuffed griffin for Teddy.

Hermione had come at a good time. The shop is closed for lunch. Their regular girl is off for the day, so no one sees the twins lead Hermione up to their flat above the shop.

"You excited?" George asks, flopping back on the sofa beside her. She holds her plate of biscuits higher so they don't spill as she bounces.

"I'm… becoming used to the idea."

"This couldn't have come at a better time," Fred says. "Our Hermione always has perfect timing, doesn't she, George?"

The war has sobered the twins greatly, but their cheer has bounced back—along with Wheeze sales. The flat shows their wealth, too. The sofa George had so carelessly flopped on had to cost as much as all of the furniture in their mother's sitting room. Everything in sight looks luxurious, and not at all as if they were being frugal with their spending money.

"Yes, she does, Fred," he says, and pats her knee.

She smiles. They will always be a silly pair. "How is that?"

"Our new baby friendly line will debut soon!" Fred crows gleefully. "Automatic burpers—"

"—spit-up cleaners—"

"—and a mother's dream: self-cleaning diapers."

Leaning over to put her plate on the end table, she considers the two men. "And what prompted this bit of baby mania?"

"Mum," George says. "Always going on about how much effort she put into us as kids—"

"—and the trouble we put her through in the end." Fred grins, and his scars stretch with his lips.

Hermione looks down. "And that was all there was to it?"

"Well…" Fred glances at George.

"Mum may have mentioned that with all the celebrating after Voldemort's death, we'll be getting a wave of births…"

"And what better way to capitalize on Voldemort's death?" she asks. The twins grin widely. She shakes her head, and the smell of her shampoo enters her nose. _Heightened scent_, she remembers from the pamphlet Healer Bones gave her.

"We won't let our favorite girl go without, if that's what you're worried about," George says.

"Yeah, we offer a great student discount."

"Thanks, Fred," she says, not bothering to hide her sarcasm. "Maybe you've designed something for twins?"

"Tw—_what_." George sits up.

"Yep." She reaches over and picks up her teacup. It is too hot and not very good. She grimaces and lowers the cup. "Girls, fortunately."

"Were you even _using _birth control?"

"Fred has a point," George says, giving his twin a worried look. "Unless your family has a history of it?"

"Not really," she admits. "And as a matter of fact, I was using birth control. Hillfred & Dunst. I take it from your faces you've heard of it."

"To take a phrase out of Ron's playbook—"

"—_blimey_."

"What?"

"Well," George gives an uneasy look his brother's way, "it's not good."

"H&D has a reputation for fucking _things_ up."

"And that's putting it mildly."

"But twins…" Another shared glance.

"From that shocked expression on your face, you don't know what we're talking about do you?"

Shaking her head at George's question, she says, "Should I feel as if Voldemort walked into the room just now? Because I do."

"The thing about twins is—"

"—we're really rare. Two sets at Hogwarts—"

"—like us and the Patel twins—"

"—was very unusual," Fred finishes. He scratches one inflamed scar on his face, a long streak like a whip-crack. Oh, how Mrs. Weasley had cried over him.

"You should probably get a book on it," George says.

"Or you'll just think we're bragging."

Discreetly checking her watch, Hermione realizes she doesn't have a lot of time before she is supposed to be back at Hogwarts. "Well, I do have a coupon," she says, and stands.

George rises with her. "Granger."

"Mm?"

His stare is uncomfortable, as if he is trying out Legilimency for the first time. Her eyes immediately begin to water.

"Who should we give the cigar?"

"Cigar?"

"The _father_," Fred says. "Mum didn't say."

"And _you_ are playing coy."

"Oh." She pulls the strap of her handbag over her shoulder. If she tells _them_ the father doesn't want to get involved, then they will do nothing short of murder to find out his name and give him a hard time. And if they come up with Harry's name…

Or Malfoy's…

The twins' eyes follow her motion as she puts a hand over her stomach. Is she imagining or is there a slight _bump_?

"I don't want to talk about it," she says. "And he's not involved by _my _decision. I don't want any Weasley hijinks out of some misguided sense of friendship."

"Oh, we're not friends," George says darkly.

"Right. _No one_ fucks with our sister."

"Literally."

"Well put."

"Gross," she says and, rolling her eyes, leaves. Poor Ginny. To think of having to deal with _them _all of her life makes her shake her head at her younger self's misguided desire to have a brother.


End file.
